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(eceh-Lel)} 
, SPOZFAOW VS. 


World-wide Moravian Missions 


IN PICTURE AND STORY 


A BLCENTENARY PUBLICATION 





1732-1932 


TEXT BY 
Y 
AMO URSSGRUEZE 


Herrnhut, Saxony 


“Geschichte der Brueder Mission”’ 
“Die Brueder Mission in Wort und Bild”’ 


and 


SatiaGAPRs Ph Dsl: 


Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 


THE COMENIUS PRESS 
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 
1926 


Published in September 1926 by 


THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION BOARD 
OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH 


Bethlehem, Pa. 


DPHeERReEVaS when Gapp eh) Oem Chatrinan 
The Rt. Rev. Karl A: Mueller, D.D., V. Chairman 
Miss Hilda C. Appelbaum, Treasurer 

Miss Mary D. Knapp 

The Rev. Chas. D. Kreider 

The Rev. Rob’t. H. Brennecke, Jr., Sec’v. 





CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 


CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 


CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 
CHAPTER 


XII 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


THE MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH........... 
FE Ee IVISSIONG INE GREENLAND ee. pete ae ttt a: tee, eee 
EL BRIVITSSIONGINGIABRADOR ee acbaiclte cs eee 
SEY EMV ISSIONMENORA LAGNA Mt nu © We atee ee ri, Gt em or, ean 
PHEeNORTH@AMERICANSINDIANSs seen Seemann oe oa 

(a) DAvip ZEISBERGER’S APOSTOLIC LABORS... ..... 

(b) THE INDIAN MISSION IN CALIFORNIA... ....... 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 


©. [00 16 20 0a 6 y C156. 0) a Ws, ee. 6° ot.'6 oe 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 


© 6 eset fe) 6) 76 ramet sie. ee ete 6 « 16 te 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


ray ORS KD Re CY eR em 


1 THE Nyasa MISSION 


eo” (aise 678) 16] ees es em 6) 611.0, 8on © eo! 6 Sue je serie) @ 


2 THE UNYAMWEsI MISSION 


Ore a” 6 te 8: ie 6) ee er a “ere. ene)! e 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 
THE MISSIONS TO THE LEPERS 


o(6) Oh 6: © 6.9.6 10. 6+ O.'6 (0) G0. 6 (Oy 6 68.0) 6) 0) & 6 


THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 


On ee 6 Sen e164 ere! ts, e) €) @ (er 86 "s) \2 


A LIST FOR FURTHER READING AND STUDY 





MANO D 


This memorial volume is published by the Religious Education Board of the 
American Moravian Church in anticipation of the Bi-centenary of Moravian 
Missions. It is an acknowledgment of the manifold blessings of God upon the 
dauntless and consecrated efforts of our foreign missionaries and of the church 
behind them to carry out the Great Commission. This splendid record should be 
a familiar story to every Moravian, young and old. 


But more! The triumphs of the past must be a challenge for the future. We 
are honor-bound to match the heroism and the glorious faith of these heralds of 
the Cross. The fields are more ripe than ever before, the doors are open wide. 
The call to larger service and Larger Life is sounding. To what can it apply 
more emphatically than to our church’s special task of Foreign Missions? 


Profusely illustrated, well printed, atiractively bound and sold at a very low 
price, this volume should soon be familiar in every Moravian home and far be- 
yond. In every congregation there should be one or more groups engaged in the 
study of its contents. It ought to become a popular gift-book at once. Every 
effort to increase its circulation will be a SSI Va) service. Old and young 
can put forth such efforts with success. 


The original book, of which this is the American translation and revision, 
was written by the Rev. Adolf Schulze, of Herrnhut, Saxony, an earnest student 
and writer of our missionary history. The American edition is published with 
the hearty approval of our missionary authorities in Germany, who published the 
original volume. Dr. S. H. Gapp prepared the manuscript, in his capacity of 
chairman of our Religious Education Board. That board hereby expresses its 
hearty appreciation of the willing loan of the major portion of the cuts used to 
the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, “The Moravian” and 
“The Moravian Missionary.” But for this co-operation the cost of the book 
would have been quadrupled. 


The financing of this publication has become possible through the fractional 
portion of the Publication Fund in the Larger Life Foundation which has already 
been contributed by the subscribers. The undersigned editor should be held 
responsible for all editorial short-comings, as Dr. Gapp has not seen any of the 
proofs, owing to his official visitation of the mission in Alaska. 


ROBERT H. BRENNECKE, JR., Secretary, 
Religious Education Board. 
Bethlehem, Pa., July 28, 1926. 





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CHAPTER | 
THE MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH 


N THE year 1932, two hundred 
T years will have passed since the 
beginning of Moravian foreign 
work. A review of those years pro- 


details of its history—how he gathered 
the congregation at Herrnhut, and call- 
ed into existence not only an outward 


co-operation but still more an inward, 





NICOLAUS LUDWIG, COUNT VON ZINZENDORF. 
From a portrait by Kupetzky. 


duces the certain conviction: not ac- 
cident, not a wise impulse of men, not 
a noble desire to serve mankind, but 
the hand of God so controlled the hearts 
of men that in His own good time they 
were led to do this work. When we 
try to discover God’s control in the 


spiritual unity between it and Count 
Zinzendorf so that both together could 
be used for a great task, then we recog- 
nize clearly that the words of Christ 
apply here: “Ye have not chosen me, 
but I have chosen you.” 

Various influences of Zinzendorf’s 


6 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


youth directed his early thought to the 
heathen world. Not in vain did he 
spend six years in the Boys’ School at 
Halle under the direct care of August 
Hermann Francke, who at that time 
was the mainstay of a just-awakening 
missionary spirit in Germany. The 
more he heard of the Kingdom of God 
among Christians and heathen in re- 
ports coming from near and far, the 
more there was mingled with his early, 


Zinzendorf was a many-sided genius, 
who seldom missed an opportunity to 
attempt something for his Master. 
And a definite plan was in his mind 
ever since he personally met, on their 
furlough at Halle, the first missiona- 
ries sent to Tranquebar in the East 
Indies. 

In that connection, in 1715, he made 
a covenant with his boyhood friend, 
Frederick deWatteville, with this pur- 





“This have I suffered for thee; what hast thou done for me?” 


eager love for Jesus personally a very 
strong impulse to dedicate himself en- 
tirely to His service. In this deter- 
mination he was greatly strengthened 
when, during his travels to finish his 
education, the nineteen-year-old youth 
saw Domenico Feti’s picture of the 
thorn-crowned Saviour in the Duessel- 
dorf gallery, with the Latin text, which 
translated means: “This have I suffer- 
ed for thee; what hast thou done for 


“99 


mer 


pose in view: “The conversion of the 
heathen and of such heathen only 
whom no one else was willing to ap- 
proach.” Zinzendorf later stated that 
their idea was not exactly that they 
were to do this themselves, for both 
were destined by their relatives for 
high position in the world and thought 
of nothing else but of obedience; but 
they hoped that the same God who had 
sent Professor Francke to the pious 
Baron von Canstein would also send 


THE MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH 7 


them people, who were fitted for such 
important service. 

Nor did they hope in vain. Sooner 
than they expected, their wish was ful- 
filled, when in 1722, Moravian exiles, 
descendants of the ancient Unity of the 
Brethren, began to settle on Zinzen- 
dorf’s estate called Berthelsdorf in 
Saxony and founded Herrnhut at the 
foot of the Hutberg. To be sure, all 
kinds of difficulties had first to be re- 
moved, and, largely through the young 
lord of the manor’s own efforts, an in- 


meeting of the entire membership and 
combined the elements of a general 
church conference, mission study, im- 
parting of general intelligence and 
arose from Zinzendorf’s perplexity oc- 
casioned by an ever-increasing oppo- 
sition to his Herrnhut experiment on 
the part of certain people in the vicin- 
ity and the large number of requests 
from people near and far tc be remem- 
bered in prayer by the Count and the 
congregation. This first day of such a 
nature was a day of very earnest pray- 





Herrnhut, Saxony, from the Hutberg, looking toward Bohemia. 


ner unity had to be achieved out of 
very inharmonious elements. On the 
thirteenth of August, 1727, a gracious 
outpouring of the spirit of love and 
peace upon the previously quarrelsome 
spirits created a genuine Church of the 
Brethren. 

The next date of importance is Feb. 
10, 1728. The Count asked the Breth- 
ren to meet him at his home for “a day 
of thanksgiving and prayer.” This be- 
came a monthly custom. The day, 
usually a Saturday, was later called 
“Gemeintag’”—in English, for want of 
a better term, Prayer Day. It was a 


er; the unusually unctious prayer of 
David Nitschmann, later called “the 
Syndic,” made a deep and lasting im- 
pression. The Count spoke on several 
texts and applied them pointedly to the 
Brethren. All present were deeply im- 
pressed and felt moved to attempt 
something really heroic for their Lord. 
Some thought this could best be done 
by taking the Gospel to Turkey, Ethio- 
pia, Greenland or Lapland. Others 
thought this passed the range of possi- 
bility, especially Greenland. The Count 
stated his belief that the Lord could 
give them grace and strength to go 


g WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


even to such countries, and urged them 
to be ready to attempt it. The next day 
all the single men of Herrnhut moved 
into the wing of a large house, and, 
besides doing their daily work, had 
daily instruction from the Count in 
writing, language-study, geography and 
medicine. All this, in order to be ready 
when the blessed day was to come of 
which they had spoken on February 
the tenth. That day of prayer must 
never be forgotten in the mission his- 
tory of the Moravian Church. 


and through the latter, to the mission 
already begun in Greenland by Hans 
Egede. Zinzendorf also learned that 
the Danish government was consider- 
ing the recall of Egede on account of 
the total lack of result of his mission. 
Zinzendorf managed to persuade the 
government to continue the mission. 
At the same time he determined, if 
at all possible, to send the Brethren 
to help Egede. 

Hardly had the Count, after his re- 
turn, told the congregation the thought 





Moravian College and Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pa. 
Harvey Memorial Library. 


The Memorial Science Building, 


Comenius Hall. 


the Gymnasium, 


Borhek Memorial Chapel. 


the Refectory and the Resident 


Professor’s House are not shown in this picture. 


For now the soldiers of Christ were 
ready for service. Those who had ex- 
perienced the grace of God in their 
own hearts, now were awaiting their 
Lord’s command to carry the Good 
News out into the whole wide world. 

And the command came soon. For 
when the Count, with several of the 
Brethren, went to Copenhagen for the 
coronation of King Christian VI, he 
became acquainted with the negro 
Anton from St. Thomas and two native 
Greenlanders. Through the former, 
their interest was directed to the needs 
of the black race in the West Indies 


of his heart, when volunteers offered 
for the task. For an entire year the 
congregation considered the matter 
and the members prayed over it in 
public and in their secret chambers— 
then they felt certain of the Divine call. 
With great joy they sent out their first 
two messengers of the Grace of the 
Christ:—Leonard Dober and David 
Nitschmann. They went to the island 
of St. Thomas, “to try to win one soul 
for the Saviour, and as many more as 
the Saviour would grant them.” Thar 
occurred on the twenty-first of August 
1732—the day that still is observed as 


THE MISSIONS OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH 9 


the birthday of Moravian Missions. 
Less than a half year later three more 
missionaries were on their way to 
Greenland. 

Since that time the missions of the 
Moravian Church have grown rapidly 
-under the blessing of God. In the 
life-time of Zinzendorf, missions had 
been begun in four of the great contin- 
ents of the earth. At first it was pos- 
sible to maintain permanently only 
these fields in America—in the Danish, 
Dutch, and English colonies. where 
they could live and labor in safety 
under the protection of Christian gov- 
ernments. When Zinzendorf died in 
1760, there were forty-nine brethren 
and seventeen sisters in eight mission 
fields: in Greenland, among the In- 
dians of North America, on the West 
Indian Islands of St. Thomas, St. Jan, 
St. Croix, Jamaica, and Antigua and 
finally in South America among the 
Arawaks in Berbice and in Surinam. 


The congregations were grouped 
about thirteen main stations. There 
were three thousand baptized mem- 
bers and four thousand adherents in 
care of the missionaries. That was a 
richer harvest than one had dared to 
expect from the very modest beginning. 
When Zinzendorf was on his death-bed, 
he exclaimed in devout astonishment 
as he reviewed his life: “I had thought 
only of first-fruits from the heathen 
and now their number runs into the 
thousands. What a large company of 
souls out of our church now stands be- 
fore the Lamb in Heaven!” 

That truly was wonderful for a time 
when only very few individuals within 
the Protestant Churches ever thought 
of Christ’s Great Commission. Since 
then there has been a great change,— 
thank God for that. Today the Mora- 
vian Church does not stand alone in 
her love of missions. The missionary 


spirit has been stirred into life in great 


circles of Protestantism. Some dec- 
ades ago one could speak of foreign 
missions as a giant just awaking from 
sleep; more recently the World War 
has done terrible damage to the great 


cause; and yet, today it has become 
a mighty force which the world is com- 
pelled to treat with respect. And Mora- 
vians rejoice that they were permitted 
to contribute their share. Not only 
has one mission society after another 
sprung into existence and prospered, 
but the Moravian work has developed 
into a world-girdling task. 


With the growth of the work, not 
only was it necessary to increase the 
number of the workers, but still more 
important was it to give the workers a 
training that fitted them to meet the 
many-sided demands of the new age. 
Therefore the Moravian Church, as 
other missionary organizations before 
her, had to found institutions for the 
special training of missionaries. Such 
a Mission School intended for German 
mission candidates was built in 1869 at 
Niesky, Upper Silesia, and was trans- 
ferred to Herrnhut in 1923. The orig- 
inal six-years’ course has now been 
Shortened to four years. A _ similiar 
training-school for English Moravians 
exists at Bristol, England, while Amer- 
icans are trained in the Theological 
Seminary at Bethlehem, Penna. At 
the present time, 1926, there are thir- 
teen mission provinces with 134 main 


stations, 164 out-stations, and 339 
preaching places. Beside the 133 
brethren and 140 sisters who are 


European and American missionaries, 
there are 122 native assistants of both 
sexes, of whom 40 are ordained min- 
isters, and 1000 native evangelists and 
helpers. They have 109,233 souis 1n 
their care, of whom 105,165 are ‘bap- 
tized members of the mission congre- 
gations. In about 250 day schools 26,- 
COO heathen and Christian children 
are taught by 700 teachers and in al- 
most 200 Sunday Schools 24,963 chil- 
dren are given religious instruction by 
over 1,200 teachers. The cost amounts 
annually to about $500,000—which is 
raised partly by the assistance of Chris- 
tians not members of the Moravian 
Church but interested in her foreigr 
missions. 

The administration of this mission- 


10 WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


ary work before the World War was in 
the hands of an International Mission 
Board with its seat at Herrnhut, Sax- 
ony, and this Board was elected by 
and responsible to a General Synod, 
constituted of representatives of all 
the home and dindependent mission 
provinces of the Church. The consti- 
tution of the international Moravian 
Church has not been abrogated, but the 
war and post-war conditions rendered 
its provisions with reference to con- 
trol of the missions inoperative. Under 
a temporary arrangement, Surinam and 
South Africa are now controlled by a 
board at Herrnhut; Labrador, the West 
Indies, Demerara, Himalaya, Unyam- 
wesi (East Africa) and the work among 
the Lepers at Jerusalem, Palestine, by 
the Society for the Furtherance of the 


Gospel in London, the headquarters of 
the British Moravian Church; and 
Alaska, Nicaragua, and California by 
the Society for Propagating the Gospel 
at Bethlehem, Penna., the centre of the 
Moravian Church in America. But 
the Mission remains the task of the 
entire Moravian Church. The mission- 
aries in the field find it a source of 
great inspiration to know that the whole 
church at home holds itself respon- 
sible for the great work and shares 
with them the joys and the sorrows of 
the great cause of Christ in the heath- 
en world. We at home should ever be 
ready to bear our full share of this 
responsibility; we can do so by ear- 
nest prayer and by  self-sacrificing 
financial support. 





The Ephrata House, Nazareth, Pa. 
Home for retired or furloughed missionaries. 


CHAPTER II 
THE MISSION IN GREENLAND 


E WILL begin our journey 
Ud around the world in Green- 

land. The Moravian Church 
has now given this mission into other 
hands. Yet we dare not ignore this old 
and honorable field, where for 167 
years Moravian missionaries preached 
the Gospel to a very poor and dying 
race. Great were the difficulties, great 
the heroism, great also the joy of sav- 
ing souls for Jesus. If advantages of- 
fered by the land or its inhabitants 
had attracted the missionaries, they 
certainly would never have gone to 
Greenland—its name sounds like sar- 
casm. There are eight or nine months 
of unusually severe winter; a few 
warm weeks of summer offer but a 
poor substitute for the beauties and 
joys of our spring, summer and autumn. 
Plant life is very scarce; over large 
areas it simply does not exist. There 
are no forests. For a very short time 
only may the eye delight itself in the 
beauty of the green meadows and va- 
riegated flowers. There is a profusion 
of berries during the warm weeks. 
Now and then, but only at great ex- 
pense of time and labor, does a mis- 
sionary succeed in raising a few sorry 
vegetables in his garden. 

And yet it would be wrong to say 
that Greenland does not have a beauty 
of its own. Yes, one may well call it 
a masterpiece of God’s creating hand. 
The winter scene fascinates the eye 
by its indescribable glory. Mighty ice- 
covered mountain-chains traverse this 
largest island of the world. One can 
leave the shore-line and travel towards 
the interior only a few miles—then 
one strikes endless and eternal fields 
of snow and ice, stretching from one 
ocean to the other, deserted by man 
and beast. But take your stand on an 
icy pinnacle and look down towards 


the sea—you behold a wiid confusion 
of rocky islands and small and large 
fiords or indentations which cut deeply 
into the torn, rockbound coast. Here 
dark masses of rock rise perpendicular- 
ly out of the deep water, there a giant of 
a mountain lifts his bare head out of 
a field of snow. Out there in the dis- 
turbed surface of the sea, icebergs sail 





Matthew Stach, one of the first Missionaries 
to Greenland. 


on in majestic calm. Countless blocks 
of ice ride the restless waves. They 
completely fill the bay till a strong 
wind drives them out into the open sea. 

You would hardly expect to find this 
arctic world teeming with animal life. 
And indeed on the land living things 
are rare—occasionally a reindeer, a 
polar bear, a fox or a white rabbit. So 
much the more numerous, however, are 
sea-birds of all kinds at the strand. 
The water is teeming with fish. The 
seal in all its many varieties constitutes 


12 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


the most important, the positively in- 
dispensable game for the human in- 
habitants of the coast. 

Do you ask who can live in a iand 
lacking almost all the essentials of 
happy living? Well, the Greenlanders 
live on this far-distant, desolate sea- 
coast. They are indeed a miserable 
people; so long as they were heathen 
they had not risen far above the low- 
est stage of human life and yet we must 
recognize in them our brothers, whom 
God destined for salvation, who are 


long ago had displaced the Norsemen 
from Europe. Was he to return home 
in disappointment? No. Evidently 
God had led him to this spot and as- 
signed him a task with these anything 
but attractive heathen. He made his 
second bold decision—bolder than the 
first. He remained in Greenland. 
That was the beginning of the mission 
which has been continued uninterrupt- 
edly to the present day and is now 
in the care of the Danish Lutheran 
Church. 





A Group of Greenland Eskimos 


entitled as much as we to the Good 
News of salvation in Christ Jesus. 
And the Gospel was brouht to these 
people in a strange enough manner. 
The godly Norwegian pastor, Hans 
Egede, learned that Norsemen had lived 
in Greenland about the year 1000. 
For several hundred years nothing had 
been know~ as to their fate. Egede 
made the bold decision to find these 
fellow countrymen of his and to min- 
ister to them the Word of God and the 
Sacraments. When he landed on the 
west coast of Greenland in 1721, he 
was astonished to find the natives who 


Just at a time when the continuance 
of the mission seemed doubtful, three 
Brethren from Herrnhut landed in 
Greenland, in 1733, in order to support 
Egede. They were Matthew Stach, his 
cousin Christian Stach and Christian 
David. They built their home, which 
they called New Herrnhut, about half 
an hour’s walk from Egede’s station, 
Godthaab. Unfortunately, the some- 
what pietistically inclined Brethren 
soon learned that they could not agree 
with the strictly Lutheran thinking of 
Pastor Egede and hence there was no 
prospect that they could work together 


THE MISSION IN GREENLAND 13 


permanently. After a while it was 
necessary for the Moravian workers to 
take up their task independently. 

Now we must take a closer look at 
these heathen. Their manner of life 
was simplicity itself. As hunters and 
fishermen they supported themselves 
entirely from the animals they caught 
on land and sea. There was nothing 
else to be had. In particular the seal 
had to furnish their necessities; meat 
for food, fur for clothing, fat for light 
and heat for their wretched earth-huts, 
bones for the manufacture of the imple- 
ments of the chase and kitchen uten- 


Neu- Herrnhut. 


Gronland. 
(ne322.) 


The main activity of these spirits was 
to aid or to hinder the Greenlander in 
his efforts to obtain food. 

Therefore the missionaries could find 
but few points of contact for the 
preaching of the Gospel. It required 
an unusual amount of patience, the 
courage of faith and a love rich in 
hope. God did not forsake them. After 
six years they had their first great joy, 
when at Easter time, 1739, they bap- 
tized Kajarnak and his entire family. 
A beginning had been made in their 
real work. 

When in succeeding years there was 





Church and Mission House at New Herrnhut. 


sils. Beyond these the Greenlander 
had neither needs nor desires. Their 
gross and often stupid features plainly 
revealed that they lacked the higher 
interest of mind and soul. The hard 
fight for daily bread, the everlasting 
conflict with the inimical forces of 
nature for mere physical existence left 
neither time nor inclination for any- 
thing else. They had a few religious 
concepts, but they were very unclear. 
Characteristically enough, seals and 
reindeer played a most important role 
in their religion. They knew of a good 
spirit, Torngarsuk, and an evil spirit, 
for many of them simply their great- 
grandmother, and many minor spirits. 


a Satisfactory increase in the number 
of converts, the founding of other sta- 
tions had to be kept in view. If all 
converts could have been gathered in 
one or two main stations, that would 
have been easier and cheaper. The 
total number never could be large, for 
the coast was sparsely inhabitated. But 
their method of obtaining a living 
forced the Greenlanders to scatter as 
far as possible along the coast, so as 
not to interfere with each cther’s hunt- 
ing and fishing. The missionaries were 
compelled to follow the natives and to 
build stations at intervals along the 
coast, where they could at least occas- 
ionally gather their parishioners for 


14 WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 












































































































































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Eskimos in an Umiak and Kayaks. 


THE MISSION IN GREENLAND 15 


worship and instruction. Six main 
stations were built: Umanak near New 
Herrnhut, Lichtenfels farther south, 
and near the southernmost point of 
Greenland, Lichtenau, Igdlorpait and 
Friedrichstal. The last named station, 
situated not far from Cape Farvel, was 
the farthest out-station toward the East 
Coast. On this still rougher and more 
inhospitable coast lived some East 
Greenlanders so isolated that the mis- 
sionaries could not reach them; travel 
was practically impossible. Occasion- 
ally, however, East Coast natives came 





Fogdal, saved her life but all her be- 
longings went to the bottom of the sea. 
Another bridal outfit was sent from 
Europe in the same year, but the vessel 
bringing it capsized in the Greenland 
harbor, and most of her goods again 
were lost. 

Communication between the stations 
was very difficult; for instance, a Gen- 
eral Conference of the missionaries at 
all the stations never was held, could 
not be held. The proper spiritual care 
of the scattered parishioners thus was 
a matter of great difficulty. Yet the 





Friedrichstal and Harbor in Southern Greenland. 


within the influence of the stations. 
To attract them, Friedrichstal was built. 
It accomplished that purpose. For, 
when the territory around the other 
Stations had long been Christianized, 
the baptisms of East Coast heathen 
were still taking place there. 

This mission always suffered greatly 
from the unpropitious natural condi- 
tions of the field. Even modern steam- 
boats find travel along the coast un- 
certain and dangerous—icebergs, pack- 
ice, storms and dense fog. In 1895 
the steamer Hvidbjoern (Polar Bear) 
was crushed completely in a terrible 
ice-jam. A missionary bride, Hansine 


missionaries reaped a rich harvest of 
souls. In matters of the mind and of 
the spirit and even in the outward 
manner of life, the elevating power of 
Christianity became very evident. Com- 
merce with Denmark helped greatly 
in raising the natives’ standard of liv- 
ing, for thus they were furnished with 
various European accessories of civil- 
ization before entirely unknown to 
them. The moral and religious train- 
ing of the Greenlanders is, of course, 
not yet perfect or ideal, and yet it is 
possible to assert that Moravian Mis- 
sions in so far finished their work here, 
that there were no more heathen in 


16 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


the vicinity of the stations. When, 
therefore, the General Synod of 1899 
had to consider seriously whether re- 
trenchment were not possible in an old 
field, in order to release money and 
men for more energetic advance in 
more recently begun efforts among 
real heathen, Greenland only could be 
considered. With heavy hearts, the 
mempbers of that Synod voted to sur- 
render the six Moravian stations with 
their 1630 members to the Danish 
Lutheran Church, which guaranteed a 
satisfactory churchly care for all the 
Christian Greenlanders. 

The Lutheran Church was in a posi- 
tion to do this, because it had a large 
number of catechists whom it had train- 
ed from the mentally very much more 
gifted mixed-breed population. The 
lesser gifted pure Greenianders, who 
constituted the Moravian membership, 
could have produced at best nothing 
higher than a good grade of native 
helpers. 


We” 
} a eee 
“ws * 
ae <i © &, 
ga Pee ae Rhy 
~ rm 
~ ew re aad 
- ee oe 





In the year 1900 the Moravian 
Church bade farewell to its second-old- 
est mission. The workers could not 
leave a field that had for almost 170 
years called forth the spiritual heroism 
of the Church, without great pain. A 
final service was held in Lichtenau and 
the mutual love and devotion of mis- 
Sionaries and native Christians was 
very evident. In forty boats and two 
hundred and twelve kayaks, such a 
multitude of Greenlanders gathered as 
probably had never assembled at one 
place before. For the last time they 
celebrated the Lord’s Supper after the 
simple, ancrent method of the Mora- 
vians and, as the missionaries left, the 
natives played for them for the last 
time the solemn chorals of the church 
on their slide trombones. On Septem- 
ber 11, 1900, Moravian missionaries 
left the shores of Greenland forever. 


n386- 


Station Igdlorpait with Icebergs in the Harbor. 


CHAPTER III 


THE MISSION 


HOUGH farther south than the 
west coast of Greenland, Labra- 
dor has a colder but fortunately 

also a dryer and therefore a much more 
pleasant and healthful climate. The 
thermometer often falls far below zero 
and the snow piles up yards high. Even 
the sea freezes solidly, so that a girdle 
of ice encases the coast five or six 
months of the year. Until this breaks 
up in May, approach to the harkors js 
impossible by steamship. 

But when at last summer comes, the 
sun generates, at least for several 
weeks, a very pleasant warmth and 
lures out of the earth a very attractive 
even though dwarf vegetation. The 
mountain slopes are covered with a soft 
mantle of moss, the green shimmer of 
which in the sunlight can be seen at a 
considerable distance. Level places 
Show a fine green sod and thousands 
of brightly colored flowers. Huckle- 
berries and cranberries grow in abund- 
ance and are greatly relished, especial- 
ly as no fruit trees of any kind can 
thrive. The missionaries manage by 
painstaking care to raise rhubarb, and a 
few vegetables, such as small potatoes 
and lettuce. Labrador has a great ad- 
vantage over Greenland in the conifer- 
ous trees which grow at least in the 
southern part of the country, and also 
a few beeches, willows and alders. 

The real beauty of Labrador consists 
not so much in its ephemeral vegetation 
or the color of its frail flowers as in 
the romantic forms of its wild, torn 
Coastline of rock. Bays cutting into 
the land to various depths, countless 
islands of all sizes, precipitous rocks 
rising boldly out of the water, chains 
of mountains stretching away as far as 
the eye can see—all this produces a 
panorama of indescribable beauty. One 
of these islands, not far from Nain, 
produces the finest specimens of the 


IN LABRADOR 


labradorite, a lime-soda  feld-spar, 
glistening in its natural state and 
showing all the colors of the rainbow 
when properly polished. 

The thousand islands and the float- 
ing ice which sometimes remains in the 





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a DAVIS cepa 
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Z ton = x 3 
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“apa Chudlewmh. Lich@na : ce 
oh} gC APa 4 ; e Os z 
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Su GAYA 4 Ramey Py 
BAY —— 
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9 pe gf Os 
ve ie mn n é 


Past and Present Stations in Greenland and 


Labrador. 


harbors till July and August, make ship- 
ping dangerous even in summer. A 
mission-ship experienced this in 1906. 
Fourteen days it was caught in enor- 
mous fields of pack-ice near the coast, 
in constant danger of being crushed— 
and it was near the end of July. How 
easily could the little vessels that make 
the annual trip between London and 
Labrador have been overtaken by the. 
fate of the giant steamer Titanic, if 
God’s protecting hand had not helped 
captains and pilots steer the ships safe- 
ly past enormous ice-bergs and through 
terrible seas of ice. They have for 
many years borne the name: “Har- 
mony.” During 150 years, not once did 


18 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


a mission ship meet with disaster on 
this sub-arctic coast. That can not be 
duplicated in the annals of northern 
shipping anywhere and gives abundant 
occasion to thank God for the protec- 
tion He gave His messengers. 


The animals of this country are just 
as arctic as are the plants. The land 
animals are mostly of the fur-bearing 
variety—reindeer, wolves, foxes, white 
rabbits, and polar bears. The white 


against the elements. The “best pro- 
vider” is the richest and most respect- 
ed man, if indeed one can speak of 
riches here. The manner of life is cer- 
tainly simple enough for all of them. 


Long contact with Europeans wakened 
the desire for better things and in- 
creased the use of “luxuries’’—such 
as tea, tobacco and syrup. The farther 
south one goes, the more apparent be- 
comes the influence of civilization. In 





“The Harmony,’ Mission-ship at the Dock in St. John’s, Newfoundland. 


grouse is plentiful. The coast-line is 
the habitat of large flocks of sea birds, 
as the eider duck and the sea gull. The 
water is inhabited by seal, walrus and 
by an almost inexhaustible supply of 
salmon, cod and other fish. 

The Eskimos, originally the sole in- 
habitants, live along the coast only, de- 
pending for their livelihood primarily 
upon water animals. Amid great pri- 
vation and danger they eke out their 
existence by hunting seals or reindeer 
or fishing. Life is a constant battle 


the north, the native huts alone are 
seen; in the south log huts or frame 
houses are more common. The houses 
of the missionaries are built of a wood- 
en frame filled in with brick and cover- 
ed with boards both outside and inside. 
They are warmer than if built of stone. 

Near the southern stations, “‘settlers”’ 
are living as well as natives. They 
are partly white and partly a cross 
breed between whites and Eskimos. 
They speak English mostly, but live al- 
most like the natives, as hunters and 


THE MISSION IN LABRADOR 19 


fishermen. Their often very wretched 
log huts show that they know more 
about poverty than riches. They were 
entirely without spiritual care and 
churchly privilege, until the mission- 
aries began to take an interest in them. 
Their number has considerably in- 
creased while the Eskimo population 
is steadily diminishing. Scarcely a 
thousand remain on the east coast. 

In the last decades, a third element 
has been added to the population—30 
to 40,000 fishermen from Newfound- 





are on land resting, or attending an 
English service arranged specially for 
them. From these settlers the natives 
learned how to build modern boats and 
how to handle sails. The missionaries 
all have boats of their own, because 
in summer that is the only means of 
travel. 

The original native boats are alto- 
gether different. The most important 
for daily use is the “‘kayak,” a boat nine 
to thirteen feet long, a light, narrow 
frame of wood covered with seal skin. 


Choir and Pipe-organ at Okak. 


land, attracted by the enormous catch 
of fish in Labrador waters. They stay 
here during the summer months only. 
Their presence has greatly stimulated 
shipping and the natives are not nearly 
as isolated as formerly. Until about 
60 years ago, the annual trip of the 
good ship “Harmony” constituted the 
only regular connection with the home 
land. Now thousands of schooners ply 
these waters in summer. ' It is very 
picturesque to see a hundred or more 
of these boats riding at anchor at Hope- 
dale some Sunday, while the fishermen 


In case of need, a man can carry it 
across the land on his head. It is a 
larger boat than the kayak of the 
Greenlander. It is also harder to man- 
age and therefore the natives here can 
not show the same skill on the water 
as the Greenlanders. So much the 
more one must admire the way in which 
they guide the clumsy craft through 
the waves of the rough sea and the 
skill with which, seated in their boats, 
they throw the harpoon into the body of 
the seal. Their harpoon is a very 
simple and yet a very effective weapon 


20 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


made of wood, bone and leather. In 
recent times, the harpoon is being dis- 
placed by the rifle. 

As soon as the severe winter has 
closed all means of travel by water, 
the Eskimo gets out his snow-shoes 
and his sled. They have two kinds of 
snowshoes; one kind very much re- 
sembles skiis, and the other was evi- 
dently borrowed from the Indian. The 








special difficulties. Hotels there are 
none, to be sure. With their big snow 
knives, they cut large blocks of frozen 
snow, and quickly build a snow house. 
In a sleeping bag made of reindeer 
hide rest is comfortable and safe in 
such a hut. Such a journey may not 
exactly be a joy and a delight when 
the temperature drops far below zero, 
the wind blows furiously and the travel- 





Eskimo Village, Showing Frame of Kayak. 


latter are more commonly used. They 
consist of a wooden frame, over which 
is stretched a network of thin leather 
Straps made of reindeer hide. With 
these they walk over the surface of 
even freshly fallen snow. The sled, 
long and narrow, is drawn by half-wild, 
wolf-like Eskimo dogs. 

Only by means of such sleds can 
the missionary visit the stations. Some- 
times they can not reach their destina- 
tion in one day. But that causes no 


er’s breath freezes in his beard, or 
when the storm obliterates every path 
and he is dependent entirely on the 
sense of direction and the keen scent 
of the dogs. The missionaries would 
not survive such a journey, or indeed 
a single winter, if they, like the natives, 
did not dress in warm and watertight 
fur clothes. 

These conditions of nature and na- 
tives give the missionary work here 
its own peculiar character. The land 


21 


THE MISSION IN LABRADOR 


"HIAOWALI, JO sJurpunorms myynveg ous 








a 




























































































































































































































































































































































































oe WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


is only thinly populaied and yet in the 
course of time a number of stations 
had to be established along the coast. 
Nain, the oldest, was founded in 1771, 
then, in order, Hopedale, Okak, Heb- 
ron, Zoar and Rama. Okak, Zoar and 
Rama had to be given up. Later, Mak- 
kovik took their place for the churchly 
care of the settlers in the south and 
in 1904 Killinek was organized, the 
northernmost station, beyond Cape 
Chidley on Ungava Bay. 

Politically, Labrador is under the au- 
thority of the Governor of Newfound- 
land, yet there is even now neither civil 
nor police authority. The missionar- 
ies are entirely safe among their Eski- 
mos—their moral authority ordinarily 
is sufficient to keep order. This is suffi- 
cient proof of the thoroughgoing and 
permanent influence of the mission. 
Sir William MacGregor, Governor of 
Newfoundland, officially visited Labra- 
dor in 1905, 1908 and 1909. After one 
of these visits he said: “Since I have 
become personally conversant with the 
work of the mission in Labrador, I 
feel impelled to say that [ know of no 
circle of men and women that deserves 
more respect, sympathy and encourage- 
ment for lonely, unselfish and devoted 
work.” In an address to the natives at 
Nain he said: “Believe me when I as- 
sure you, that the missionaries have al- 
ways been your best and truest friends; 
they are that now and ever will re- 
main such.” The Eskimos surely could 
not find better friends, for the mission- 
ary at his station gives them counsel 
and help in practically every aspect of 
life and duty, not only as preacher and 
pastor, but also as doctor and adviser 
in all possible affairs of life. A large 
hospital in care of a trained medical 
missionary was built in 1903 at Okak 
and has proved a great help in the care 
of the sick, which previously had rest- 
ed on the missionaries alone. At times 
this doctor has a deaconess to help 
him. The doctor often visits patients 
in out-of-the-way places, even when 
traveling is difficult and dangerous. 

From the very beginning the mis- 





Church and Hospital at Former Station, Okak. 


THE MISSION IN LABRADOR 23 





The Choir at Nain. 


Sionaries engaged in trade with the 
local people, at first for the purpose of 
earning at least in part the cost of the 
mission. It proved also to have great 
value in training the heathen. It gave 


the workers opportunity to train the 
natives in habits of thrift and order, 
much needed by these ungifted and de- 
pendent children of nature. Later, un- 
principled white traders attempted to 





Hopedale, One of the Oldest Stations. 


24 






liv 


WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


os = , 


= “8 


The Church and Mission House at Makkovik. 


Killinek, with Station in the Foreground. 


vow abandoned, because the Eskimos have moved farther 
ing conditions are better. 








south, where 


THE MISSION IN LABRADOR 25 


exploit the natives; then the Christians 
gave them an example of honest busi- 
ness methods. At several stations a 
large store and warehouse stands near 
the church. Often there is also an es- 
tablishment where the native women 








London company is no longer able to 
make itself entirely responsible for the 
considerable cost of this mission. The 
general mission-treasury of the Church 
now defrays the expense of the church- 
work, while the London friends are re- 





An Eskimo School-girl in Labrador. 


can take proper care of the seal blub- 
ber. There is a company in London 
which sells the goods received by bart- 
er in Labrador, for the benefit of the 
Moravian Mission. The ever-increas- 
ing competition of independent traders 
and fishermen has so changed the busi- 
ness conditions in Labrador that this 


sponsible for the trade and the men en- 
gaged in business and industry in the 
Labrador mission. 

No other church is active among the 
natives on the northern part of the 
coast. In Ungava and farther south an 
English mission is at work. The Eski- 
mos are essentially Christianized and 


26 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


this is unquestionably the result of the 
self-sacrificing labor of Moravian 
brethren and sisters in the course of 
more than one hundred and fifty years. 

The native Christians of course are 
still far from perfect, especially in the 
realm of manners and morals. On the 
other hand, the ‘‘power of the Gospel” 
has unquestionably formed “a new 
creature” of many of these people, by 
nature on so low a plane of develop- 
ment. The proof of this is found in 
their civil and in their church life, 
among other things in their faithful- 
ness in church attendance for worship 
and instruction. At the present time 
the work at the older stations resembles 
far more the character of organized 
church life than of evangelization, and 
the missionaries find the native help- 
ers very capable. Way up north, in the 
vicinity of Killinek, there still are 
heathen people, but their number is 
rapidly diminishing. 

It was an occasion of great joy when, 
for the first time, native Christians built 


an out-station for themselves, on their 
own suggestion and at their own ex- 
pense. This is Uviluktok, near Hope- 
dale. During the fishing season, many 
church members work in that neighbor- 
hood, and they built this church that 
they might have spiritual ministrations 
during their absence from home. It 
was dedicated on August 30, 1903. One 
Sunday morning Governor MacDonald 
appeared unexpectedly at this station 
and was delighted to note how these 
people observed the Lord’s Day and 
kept service in their little church. He 
said: “Even though you are here be- 
yond the supervision of the mission- 
aries, | see that you nevertheless ob- 
serve the day as if your teachers were 
present with you. If there never had 
been any missionaries in Labrador, 
this church would not stand here and 
you would not be here today and you 
would not have a day of rest. Yes, it 
is questionable whether any of your 
race would still be alive.” 





A Group of Children at Killinek. 


Os aN ol Ws 
THE MISSION IN ALASKA 


USSIA did not know just what to 
do with her great peninsula in 
the northwestern corner of North 

America and in 


1868 sold it to the 


The Rev. John H. Kilbuck, a Delaware Indian. 
One of our Pioneer Missionaries in Alaska. 


United States for seven million two 
hundred thousand dollars. The pur- 
chase was commonly called “Seward’s 
Folly” —after the Secretary of State 
who negotiated the deal. Up to that 
time, the Greek Catholic Church had 
claimed exclusive spiritual jurisdiction 
over Alaska. After the sale, ten Protes- 
tant missionary societies soon entered 
the field—the Moravian Church among 





them. The physical conditions of the 
land and the racial characteristics of 
the natives are very similar to those 
of the other sub-arctic missions, Green- 
land and Labrador, except 
that Alaska has a very 
much greater variety of 
climate, flora, fauna and 
an iminensely greater 
wealth of natural re- 
sources, especially miner- 
al. To the present time 
the natural resources of 
Alaska have returned to 
the United States more 
than one billion dollars. 


Mighty mountains, the 
highest peaks over 20,000 
feet high, cross the great 
country. Great rivers and 


numerous inland lakes 
supply an abundance of 
water. The largest river, 


the Yukon, is a worthy 
rival of “the Father of 
Waters” in length and 
volume of water. It is 
also a very important 
means of communication 
with the interior. Its 
neighbor, the Kuskokwim, 
also a noble river, is navi- 
gable for a considerable 


distance for vessels. of 
smaller draft. On its 
banks the Moravian 


Church’s missions are located. 


Bushes, moss, turf and marsh cover 
very large areas. This is called the 
“tundra,”’—a Russian word meaning 
a marshy plain. Between these tun- 
dras there are hundreds of square 
miles of magnificent forests. The ani- 
mals are like those of Greenland and 
Labrador. Worthy of special mention 
is the apparently inexhaustible supply 


28 WorLp-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


=) Ral Is 
OS. Genge Ts Me 


Ce 
2 YTIAN ISLANDS 

Po ae * a 
LBS CIAENS 2? V4 


> 





(P Agog» ac Is 


Co Phaseak ! 


Map of Moravian Missions in Alaska, 
Carmel and Togiak are discontinued. 


of fish like salmon and cod, and all va- 
rieties of seals and walruses. But rein- 
deer are not native here; they had to 
be introduced from Siberia. They 
were needed as draught animals in 
place of the dogs, and their flesh is a 
palatable food for the people. 

The great value of this territory for 
the United States lies especially in its 


enormous deposits of gold, coal and 
copper. Several railroads have been 
built to make these, as well as the tim- 
ber, more easily available for transport 
by ship to the rest of the world. The 
gold fields in particular have lured 
thousands of white people to Alaska; 
they hoped to become rich quickly and 
easily. Whole towns of working-class 





A Winning Team of Racing Reindeer and their Driver, Karl. 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA 





Native Fish House. 
Beyond the Reach of Dog's. 





River Eskimos and Dogs at Camp. 


29 


30 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Eskimo in Kayak with a Supply of Eggs. 





Return from the Goose-hunt, Showing Native Sled. 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA 31 


people sprang up like mushrooms in 
the interior. Sad to say, their presence 
was not always an advantage _ to 
the weaker race of natives. The for- 
tune-hunters left behind them a trail 
of vile diseases, of drunkenness and 
immorality. 

The entire population is about 54,- 
000, more than half of which is white— 


In the year 1900, an epidemic of in- 
fluenza followed by measles and pneu- 
monia, wiped out more than half of 
the people along the Kuskokwim. Our 
missions there were placed in a very 
critical condition for a while by that 
visitation. The Eskimos live almost 
entirely by hunting and fishing. They 
resemble their cousins in Greenland 





The Rev. S. H. Rock and Daughter Elsie in Furs. 


Swedish, Norwegian, Canadian, Ger- 
man, Irish and English. The natives 
are divided into four groups: Eskimos, 
Aleuts, Thlingits and Athabascans. The 
Moravians are working among the 
Eskimos only. Their number is difficult 
to determine—perhaps ten to fifteen 
thousand, a large percentage of whom 
live on the Kuskokwim River. In cer- 
tain parts, as for instance in the Nush- 
agak district, the population is slowly 
dwindling, mostly because of sickness. 


and Labrador in every respect. There 
are Slight differences in some customs. 
For instance, beside the one-passenger 
kayak, they also have the bidarka, which 
carries three passengers. Social life 
is slightly more developed here; the 
so-called kashima is a kind of com- 
munity house where the men and 
youths of the village meet regularly for 
consultation and for social entertain- 
ment—such as it is. 

It is larger than the ordinary, very 


ae WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Kashima (Community House) at Akiak 
Former Place of Worship. 


ordinary dwelling, called  barabara. 
These are commonly mere huts of 
wood, stone and earth, about half under 
ground, often inhabited by a number 
of families. In the villages under mis- 
sionary influence, these shacks have 
been displaced by simple but neat 
frame houses. Heathenism still has 
a firm hold on these natives and ex- 
ercises a strong control over their 
thinking. The so-called ‘“‘shamans’”’ 
(witch doctors) still play an important 
role. The opposition to the mission- 


aries originates largely with them. 
Otherwise, the pagan religion shows 
itself mostly in superstitious practices, 
especially at certain feasts featured by 
masquerades and in their funeral rites. 
In comparatively recent times, it was 
customary to bury the living little child 
with the body of its dead mother. 
Several missionary societies preced- 
ed the Moravians to Alaska, but they 
ministered to Indians only.. No one 
seemed to be interested in the dying 
race of the Eskimos. This neglect 





Church at Akiak, Dedicated 1913. 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA $5) 





The “Moravian II,’”’ New Mission Boat at the Landing Place, Quinhagak. 


made a deep impression on Dr. Shel- the Indians at Sitka, Alaska, and later 
don Jackson, the apostle of Alaska, Territorial Superintendent of Education 
pioneer Presbyterian missionary among who died in 1909. After appealing in 





Station Bethel, Seen from the Kuskokwim River. Saw-mill in the Foreground. 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


34 





"durvQ SUIUSTY Ieurming 4v SOWUTTASY 03 Suryoverg Holvsemvy jrcdioH 





35 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA 


HOSUITIISMH }v UwstpIIMD ourms” 





36 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The Kuskokwim Orphanage and Manual Training School, in Building, 1925. 
On the Quigtluk River. 





Bethel, Locking toward the River. 
First House and Sawmill in Foreground. 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA 37 





Eskimo Boys and their Canine Friends. 


vain to several societies, he pleaded 
eloquently in the Moravian Church at 
Bethlehem, Pa., on February 10, 1884. 
After a tour of inspection made by the 
veteran Indian missionary, A. Hart- 
mann, and a young graduate in theo- 


4 


A Group of Missionaries and Native Helpers. 
Rear row, center: Rev. J. H. Kilbuck 
Front row: Rev. A. Butzin, Sup’t. 


logy, W. H. Weinland, the mission was 
begun in 1885. The first missionar- 
ies were W. H. Weinland and John 
Kilbuck, also a recent graduate in theo- 
logy, a full-blooded Indian, descendant 
of a famous Delaware Indian chief. 





38 WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


With them and their brides went a 
pious Scandinavian-American carpen- 
ter, Torgerson by name. He was a man 
mature in years, of practical experience 
in life, and it was his task to help the 
young people build themselves proper 
houses in the wilds of their new home. 

Bethel is the name of the station 
they built, on the lower part of the 
Kuskokwim River, and it remains till 
now the headquarters of Moravian 
work in Alaska. Before the first house 


Torgerson and rehearsed for their own 
comfort as well as for the benefit of 
the natives the story of Christ’s pas- 
sion, death and resurrection. An old 
man said: “Kuyana (thanks) ! We never 
heard so much of the love of God. 
Please tell us all you know. We too 
would like to have that blood take away 
our badness.” In that same year, 
eight adults were received into the 
mission-church; not baptized, but re- 
ceived. For these heathen had been 





Starting Out with a Dog-team. 


was under roof, Torgerson fell from 
the boat into the river and was drowned. 
It was a sad day for the inexpe- 
rienced missionaries, but they did not 
despair. The Eskimos seemed entire- 
ly unreceptive to the Gospel message. 
When the missionaries had somewhat 
mastered the difficult language, they 
found the heathen rather more respon- 
sive than in some other fields. After 
three years came the first definite re- 
sult. On Easter Sunday morning, the 
missionaries stood beside the grave of 


baptized in their youth by a Russian 
priest and had actually been admitted 
to the Holy Communion. None-the- 
less they grew up as ignorant heathen, 
according to their own _ statement, 
and had heard very little of the Gospel 
of Christ. 

The Brethren were soon to make per- 
sonal and unpleasant acquaintance with 
a Russian priest. While they were 
building the second station, Carmel on 
the Nushagak River, they were greatly 
hindered by the violent opposition of 


THE MISSION IN ALASKA 39 


a neighboring priest. Later a_ fish 
cannery attracted a very undesirable 
element as employees, not only whites, 
but Chinese and Japanese, whose in- 
fluence ruined the work of the mis- 
sionaries by misleading the natives 
into drunkenness, gambling and inde- 
cency. So Carmel was discontinued. 
On the Kuskokwim their efforts pros- 
pered, especially when several mis- 
sionaries who had labored under similar 


south on Kuskokwim Bay and eastward 
on Togiak Bay and Togiak River. To 
preach the Gospel in villages scattered 
over such an area requires a great deal 
of travel and travelling is hard in 
Alaska. Sledding is not only stren- 
uous, there is some risk connected with 
it. The missionaries alone could never 
accomplish this work. For years they 
have had some fairly well qualified 
native helpers. Partly to their effi- 





Group of Eskimos at Bethel. 


conditions ‘of life in Greenland and 
Labrador were transferred to Alaska. 

There are now two main districts,— 
Bethel, some distance up and on the 
west bank of the Kuskokwim River, 
has about a dozen preaching places to 
care for in its vicinity on both banks 
of the river and about another dozen 
stretched along the west bank south- 
ward all the way to Kuskokwim Bay 
and over toward Nelson Island; the 
other, Quinhagak, on the east bank 
near the mouth of the river, has about 
twenty centres of influence towards the 


ciency must be ascribed the fact that 
the power of heathenism is_ broken 
in the immediate vicinity of the sta- 
tions. It is also probably a direct re- 
sult of their work that so many Eski- 
mos are now asking for baptism. In 
the year 1912, for instance, 209 heath- 
en asked for baptism in five months 
in the Bethel District alone. 

At Bethel a home for native chil- 
dren was instituted, which proved to 
have great influence in bringing the 
Gospel close to the people. It was 
neither an easy nor a pleasant task to 


40 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


try to train wild children, brought up 
in the greatest imaginable uncleanness. 
But the effort was successful. No 
more telling proof could be cited, than 
the evident difference between heath- 
en children as they were brought to the 
Home, and the same children when 
they had finished their training at the 
Home. Their happy appearance and 
their good behavior stood in striking 
contrast to that of children untouched 
by the Gospel and by civilization. But 


above everything else, they carried 
away from the Home a precious seed in 
their shearts, the love of Jesus the 
Siavior, which has borne glorious fruit 
in their lives. Necessity closed this 
Home some years ago, but this year, 
1926, an Orphans’ Home and Manual 
Training School was re-established, in 
a specially erected building on the 
Quigtluk River with an enrollment of 
more than a dozen children. 





A Dog-team in the Timber 





CHAPTER V 


THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
A.—DAVID ZEISBERGER’S APOSTOLIC LABORS 


HEN the Moravians became 
definitely established in Beth- 
lehem, Pennsylvania, in the 
year 1742, a new mission opportunity 


red-skins falls in the time of David 
Zeisberger, a real Apostle to the In- 
dians, who spent more than 63 years 
of a richly blessed hfe among his 





David Zeisberger 
Moravian Apostle to the Indians 


at once thrust itself upon them in the 
presence of the wild Indians roaming 
the primeval forests all about them. 
Even before this, Christian Henry 
Rauch had begun his work among In- 
dians in New York State in 1740 and 
the very earliest Moravian efforts in 
this country were made in 1735, near 
Savannah, Georgia. But the glory of 
Moravian soul-saving work among the 


“brown hearts.” He had an unusual 
linguistic ability, combined with most 
painstaking diligence, which he devot- 
ed to the acquirng of various Indian 
dialects, which ultimately he spoke as 
fluently as his mother tongue. The 
tribes and their languages have long 
ago disappeared from the earth, but 
Zeisberger’s manuscripts still exist as 
proof of his talent and diligence: 


42 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


grammars, dictionaries and translations. 
His studies were only a means to an 
end. He studied Indian language and 
lore in order to understand the native 
in his many-sided life and to compre- 
hend his thought, so that he might ap- 
proach him with the message of Jesus 
Christ on the basis of a real understand- 
ing of his imner nature. He lived 
months and years in distant native 
villages, the only white man among the 
Indians and he lived as much as pos- 
sible as they lived. Their customs and 
manners were as natural to him as if 
he had been brought up in them. He 
became so thoroughly an Indian to the 


dian congregations began to develop. 
But it seemed as if some unholy pow- 
ers had formed a conspiracy against 
Zeisberger, his life-work, and against 
the poor Indian in general. One war 
after another devastated the land and 
decimated the people, and prevented 
the attainment of lasting peace and 
safety. The mission work was sadly dis- 
turbed—crushed in fact in one locality 
after another. Hardly was a station 
built and prospering, before it was de- 
stroyed and its people driven away. 
The bloody wars between the English 
and the French for the possession of 
the colonies in the new world, interne- 





“The Power of the Gospel’ 
D. Zeisberger Preaching to the Indians. 
(Painting by A. Schuessele.) 


Indians that finally they no longer look- 
ed upon him merely as a friend, but 
with quaint old Indian formalities chief 
Shikellimy and his son adopted Zeis- 
berger into the tribe of the Onandagas, 
clan of the Turtle, and named him 
Ganousseracheri, which means ‘‘On the 
pumpkin.” But he never lost sight of 
his main purpose—to win the red man 
for Christ. 

Many bold and dangerous journeys 
did Zeisberger make through the dense 
primeval forests of the new world. 
Very often he spent the evening with 
his “brown brethren” around their 
camp fires and eloquently witnessed for 
Jesus. Hopefully enough the first In- 


cine wars among the various tribes as 
they became entangled by alliances 
with the great world powers, and the 
Revolutionary War of the American 
colonies against England were the 
main causes of the disaster. 

For decades the whole country was 
in a constant state of excitement. On 
the western border in particular there 
prevailed an intense hatred of the In- 
dian. By common consent they were 
considered outlaws. “The only good 
Indian is a dead Indian.” Terrible 
cruelties practiced on the settlers caus- 
ed that feeling,—cruelties that often 
were done in revenge for the injustice 
of which the white people were guilty. 


THE NorRTH AMERICAN INDIANS 43 








Captain John Morongo. 


Moravian Indians were not guilty of 
acts of barbarism; they were peace-lov- 
ing and God-fearing. During the Re- 
volutionary War they were feared and 
hated by both the British and the 
Americans. The British considered 
them spies for the Americans. The 
Americans thought them allies of the 
British. They were not the one thing 
nor the other. That they entertained 
war parties of both sides is undeniable 
—a necessity forced upon them by the 
sacred laws of hospitality. It placed 
the converted Indian in an unenviable 
and a dangerous situation. Time and 
again, Zeisberger and his converts were 
forced to leave well-established  vil- 
lages and fruitful farms and trek farth- 
er west to begin all over again—and 


move on once more. Twice his stations 
were attacked and their people mas- 
sacred. Gnadenhuetten on the Mahoni 
(Lehighton and Weissport, Pennsyl- 
vania) was sacked by wild redskins and 
eleven white people murdered, in 1755. 
The second time wild white men _ at- 
tacked Gnadenhuetten on the Muskin- 
gum (now Tuscarawas) in Ohio and 
butchered ninety Christian and six vis- 
iting heathen Indians, in 1781. 
During all the turmoil of these 
years, Zeisberger never forsook his 
children of the forest. As a faithful 
shepherd, he led them from place to 
place and with invincible patience he 
gathered again his little flock scattered 
by war. There were, of course, some 
years of peace, during which the Gos- 


44 


WorLbD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Chapel at Rincon. 


pel proved its power over Indian hearts. 
But these times never lasted long. 
Zeisberger personally built no less than 
thirteen stations. The last one was 
Goshen, Ohio, where in 1808 he died 
in the 88th year of his life. Only a 


Rite 





little group of Christians was with him 
and they bitterly lamented the pass- 
ing of the patriarch whom they dearly 
loved. At that time, there were only 
two little Indian congregations, with a 
membership of several hundred souls: 


Chapel at the Potrero. 


THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 45 





Government Indian School at the Potrero. 


Goshen, Ohio and Fairfield in Canada. 
Both these names have since disappear- 
ed from Moravian annals. Fairfield 
united with the Methodist Church at 
the end of the last century. In the 
early years of the 19th century, the 
Indians were forced to leave their 
lands east of the Mississippi River. 
Gradually the Indians were restricted 
to reservations under government su- 
pervision. The Moravian Church could 
no longer follow them. Thus ended 
the great story of Moravian effort to 
bring the Gospel to the noble red man 
of the North American forest. 

In 1925, 349,595 Indians survived 
in the continental United States, divid- 
ed into more than 150 tribes and clans, 
speaking different dialects and scat- 
tered on 147 reservations in practically 
every State of the Union. 120,000 of 
them speak English. 79,000 are citi- 


zens and 26,000 are voters. Less than 
one third of them are connected with 
the Christian Church and about 46,- 
000 are in no way looked after by 
either Protestant or Catholic mission- 
aries. Nine thousand young Indian 
men fought in the American Army dur- 
ing the World War. The Indian of 
the olden days was a religious being. 
All that is left of that old Indian is the 
war-paint, bow and arrow, blanket and 
moccasin. The modern Indian is in a 
transition period. He must become a 
Christian citizen. He needs the help 
of the Church. The Moravian interest 
in him has not entirely disappeared. 
For before the last Moravian Indian 
congregation came to an end, an op- 
portunity came for work among the so- 
called “Mission Indians” of California. 
The old love for the red man found 
a new object of its care. 


B.—THE INDIAN MISSION IN CALIFORNIA 


HE Moravian Church can not 
make a boast of its Indian mis- 
sion in California so far as num- 

bers are concerned. The mission nec- 


essarily must share the fate of the sur- 
viving Indians—once they were the 
vigorous, proud rulers over a vast and 
wonderful domain, now they are only a 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


46 


‘O10T30 Of} 9% OSHOP UOIsstw@E pur ywormyg 





47 


THE NorTH AMERICAN INDIANS 


‘ZOULLIVIAL 32 YOINYO MON OUL 





48 WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


remnant living among a great and rich 
people of another race. Of the few 
thousand Indians left in California, 
about one fifth are “Mission Indians.” 
Nevertheless here was an opportunity 
to play the Good Samaritan. 

The call to the American Moravian 
Church to help the Indians in Cali- 
fornia came in the year 1889, and in 
this strange way. Helen Hunt Jack- 
son, special Indian commissioner for 
California, published a book in 1884, 
with the title ““Ramona;” it was intend- 
ed to expose the wrongs suffered by the 
North American Indians in general at 
the hands of the white men, and in 
particular to draw attention to the 
wretchedness of the Indians in the 
small Indian reservation in California. 
“Ramona” iS a common name among 
women on that reservation. This book 
caused the Womens’ National Indian 
Association to attempt to civilize ten 
Indians by providing school privileges 
for them and to Christianize them by 
giving them the Gospel. The Associa- 
tion asked the Moravian Church to 
supply the missionary. William H. 
Weinland had just returned from 
Alaska because of ill-health, and the 
church called him to establish the Ban- 
ning station in 1890. 


For missionary Weinland, the trans- 
fer involved a very great change of 
climate. Alaska does not have enough 
heat—the Potrero in California has too 
much. Alaska has too much moisture 
—the Potrero not nearly enough. A 
rank tropical vegetation appears where- 
ever there is sufficient water. The sta- 
tion stands in a dry, hot desert of sand 
—prickly cactus grows in abundance. 
The soil however is fertile. Wherever 
artesian wells or, in later years irriga- 
tion, provided water enough, trees 
flourished, fine orchards were devel- 
oped, palms grew luxuriantly, grapes, 
almonds, olives and other fruits and 
vegetables throve. Sheep and cattle 
raising are profitable. The natives of 
course had none of these modern meth- 
ods of agriculture. They eked out a 
miserable existence in their hot sandy 


deserts. Their homes were exceedingly 
primitive, square houses of boards or 
adobe, (bricks of sun-dried clay) very 
occasionally of stone. The interior is 
not inviting; scarcely any furniture. 
The native is inside only when he eats 
cr sleeps. The rest of the time he sits 
in the shade of his house. Some of the 
young men go into the nearest villages 
for work—especially to help harvest 
plums, oranges, nuts, etc. The women 
busy themselves in weaving ‘baskets 
out of plant fibres and roots. More 
than any kind of work, however, the 
native loves—idleness. He never suf- 
fered from diligence—rather would he 
devote himself to drink and gambling. 
His languid disposition seidom craves 
more noble satisfaction. Life is very 
monotonous. Now and then a dance, 
in which a medicine man takes the 
most prominent part, provides a little 
variety. 

Beside the dance, heathenism does 
not seem to have a very strong hold 
on these people. They show few signs 
of any religion. Many years before, 
Catholic padres were active here and 
a few phrases and customs introduced 
by them still survive. The Jesuits be- 
gan their work here in 1734, were ex- 
pelled by the king of Spain in 1767, 
and were followed in 1769 by Fran- 
ciscan friars, who established twenty- 
one missions. They abandoned the 
field in 1836. These priests left the 
“Mission” Indians when the Spanish 
and the Mexican ownership of Cali- 
fornia ceased. Mexico ceded the entire 
territory to the United States in 1848. 

The lot of these Indians under the 
new government was not more plea- 
sant. The white settlers abused the 
Indians and made the Indian very sus- 
picious of the pale-faces. Hence mis- 
sionary Weinland found the approach 
to his new parishioners anything but 
easy. Only after their shy and dull 
minds became convinced that his 
friendliness and love were really un- 
Selfish were they ready to listen to 
him. Confidence was greatly strength- 
ened when the greatly respected chief, 


THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 49 





The Rev. W. H. Weinland 
Veteran Missionary in Alaska and California. 


John Morongo, who at the same time 
was a police official in the service of 
the government, openly took sides with 
the missionary and faithfully support- 
ed him. Gradually the natives opened 
their reserved and unimpressionable 
hearts to the influence of the Gospel. 
A little congregation of baptized Chris- 
tians was organized, among whom 
were some who manifested a more 
manly and decided form of Christianity 
than one could naturally have expected 
of them. 

Such resoluteness was soon put to 
the test. When the Catholic Church 
learned that a Protestant work had 
been started in the field it had desert- 
ed, its priests were on the field imme- 


diately and did not hesitate to interfere 
in every possible way. Arson, murder- 
plots, attempts to poison—such methods 
the new missionaries had to face. At 
several of the preaching-places con- 
nected with the stations, Catholic 
chapels were erecied, as at Martinez 
and Rincon, even though there was no 
need for them. It even happened once 
that a priest 'by force seized the corpse 
of a baptized member of the Mora- 
vian Church, baptized the corpse ac- 
cording to the Catholic formula and 
then had it buried in a “consecrated”’ 
i. e. Catholic, cemetery. Added to such 
enmity, consider the hardship of travel 
through the hot sandy wastes and the 
primitiveness of the living conditions, 


50 WorRLb-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


and you will not wonder that occasion- 
ally the missionary complained of the 
hardness of his lot. But the work for 
God and for souls was not in vain. 
Three stations developed, Potrero, 
Martinez, and Rincon, with a number 
of filials, at which little congregations 
regularly assembled for worship and 
for instruction in holy things. It is a 
matter of great encouragement to know 
that the Indians in the care of the 
Moravian Church have not only pro- 
gressed wonderfully in an economic 
way, but also have made great head- 
way in overcoming their national vice— 
intemperance. The Protestant Indians 
work very much more diligently than 
the rest of them. In the Potrero they 
raise barley and oranges; in Martinez, 
beans and especially watermelons, 
which in the market of Los Angeles 
are considered the best to be had in 
that entire neighborhood. All this 





good work in the life-time of one man 
—W.H. Weinland. Surely a great re- 
ward for him and his associates! 

It can never be anything else but an 
humble work. There are no great 
numbers of people to deal with. Some 
think their number will continue grad- 
ually to decrease, that this is a dying 
branch of a once great people. There 
are scarcely more than 3000 Indians 
in California—the survivors of eight 
separate tribes, and they live scattered 
widely over the land. That is an op- 
pressive thought, but must not prevent 
the Moravian Church from performing 
for the few ‘surviving members of a 
dying race the last service of love, in 
bringing them, even if it should prove 
their last hour, that peace of heart that 
the world cannot give, that comes only 
from the message of the love of God 
in Christ Jesus. 


ee 
: es Bi 4 
CMe be <7 
Gi Me: 


bed te 
6 GPRS IE. Lae 


gies 
% 


New Parsonage at Martinez. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 
(MISKITO COAST) 


FTER wars had violently de- 
stroyed the Moravian work 
among the North American In- 
dians, and before the mission among 
the remnants had been started in Cali- 


nexed by the Republic of Nicaragua. 
Bluefields is the seaport and most im- 
portant city of this country. 

Its climate is tropical, wet, hot and 
ennervating. Alternating land and sea- 





Church in Bluefields. 
(Liagoon in the background.) 


fornia, the missionaries of this mission- 
ary church were again brought into con- 
tact with a numerous Indian population 
in Central America. The total Indian 
population of Central America is 
twenty million; mixed White and In- 
dian, thirty-two million; mixed Negro 
and Indian, seven hundred thousand. 
On the Eastern coast of Nicaragua 
there was the “Miskito Indian Re- 
serve,” named after the largest Indian 
tribe inhabiting the seacoast. It had 
a native king of its own, but was under 
a protectorate of Great Britain, till 
in 1894 the entire Reserve was an- 


breezes can be depended on daily to 
make the climate bearable for white 
people. With the extreme heat there is 
a superabundance of water, distributed 
over the entire flat area in numerous 
rivers and narrow canals. Along the 
sea coast there is an endless marsh. It 
never becomes entirely dry. Here and 
there dry patches of ground stand out 
of the swampy region, like islands out 
of the sea. On these the Indians build 
their settlements and the missionaries 
their stations. 

There are no streets here—the water- 
courses are the only means of com- 




































11 Bie ban \ EASTERN NICARAGUA 
| PEO Butuk\ AND HONDURAS. 
i fo Tie Sel aaa ee ae 

FOR ELAS hei Sao = 
| j eAUh 5 ear? 
ari ws ae 7 eas: Beare. 
Bees ues SP XKrate Fels 
= a Sas Kereta re — 

is aut 
<e cee or ae 
aay xd we! Laka® rut ‘ ae 
| e ) wr / te : 
: ee vs 


& ry Dakura —~ 


PAuas tere 












> 4 Weunta 
we, S8nne =} Walpasiksa—— 
Bs, i. [ee le ee Pris | 



























































re) Blucfi elds Bl 2 








N ICAJRAGWUA 

































































wa / 
* 0 s @ 
a Sher t . 
ZA At s fie Seund— 2) ae | 
a , 2° 
ge a yma Key 5 
* me 
| LAKE ao. Ae ae . 
fi ae os = 
Us NICARAH ; Punta Gory, Le . \ Monkey Point <P 
GUA a 
ic « Punta Gerda - 
Ss \ Me Bee 
2 13 
| \ “;, iy Aa 
@ L 
t\ 2. SI low 4 — 
} es 
COSTA RICA 
Glee bee 
a eee, 
Map Showing Our Mission Stations. 
Drawn by Rev. George R. Heath. 
munication. The most common means 


of transportation is the “‘pitpan,’”’ which 
the Indians skillfully construct out of 
the trunk of a tree. Sailboats and 


latterly small steamers can be used _ ticks, 


disport themselves. 
poisonous snakes make the woods dan- 
gerous for man. 
cattle fear the jaguar most of all. Ants, 
chigri, 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


only on the lagoons and larger 
rivers. The dory cr canoe and 
the motor-boat have been in 
use for some years. 

You would expect that a 
country with tropical climate 
and an excessive abundance of 
water would be covered by 
the rankest kind of tropical 
vegetation. Yet this is only 
partly the case. The low lying 
strip of land along the coast is 
mostly an infertile waste of 


sand. Behind this, towards 
the west, there are miles of 
desert “savannas’’—1i.e. level 


Stretches of land covered by 
grass and bushes, but usually 
without trees. The monotony 
of these “steppes” is occasion- 
ally broken by a clump of pine 
or other trees. Still farther in 
the interior, there are moun- 
tain ranges with splendid for- 
ests and rich in mineral wealth. 
The primeval forests of the 
tropics are found along the 
rivers farther inland. But even 
along the coast, spots of fer- 
tile soil are found; here may be 
raised sugar cane, corn, cotton, 
tobacco, coffee, cocoa, oranges, 
pine-apples, cocoanuts and 
bananas. The last named are 
the most productive and not 
only supply the natives with 
their main article of diet, but 
very large quantities are ship- 
ped to North America. Special 
mention should also be made 
of the cassava, the tuberous 
root of which takes the place 
of potatoes in other countries. 
Mahogany and cedar are the 
most valuable trees found in 
the forests. 

All kinds of animals are 
found here. In the forests, 
countless monkeys and parrots 
Many varieties of 


Owners of herds of 


and sand fleas (spring 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 53 





Bishop Guido Grossmann, Superintendent. 


tails) almost make life miserable. 
There are also valuable animals, such 
as the wild pigs, deer, fish, and big 
turtles, sometimes weighing a hundred 
pounds, the flesh of which is greatly 
prized. There are but few cattle among 
the Indians. 


The population is scattered thinly 
over the land. Representatives of the 
most varied races live together here— 
the black, white, red, yellow and brown. 
The Indians still are the most numer- 
ous—about 20,000. The first mission- 
aries had these in view when they came 
to this country. Immigrants are com- 
ing in ever larger numbers, especially 
in the neighborhood of Bluefields— 
Negroes and Mulattoes, and in more re- 
cent years, Creoles and Chinese, but 
above all Spanish half-breeds from the 
interior of Nicaragua. 

Even the Indians represent various 


tribes. Their customs and manners in- 
deed are very similar; their dialects, 
color of skin, and even physical char- 
acteristics differ somewhat. They are 
not by any means all pure Indians; 
many show traces of negro blood. All 
of them are expert swimmers, good 
hunters, and rowers of great persist- 
ence. They have the Indian’s wonder- 
fully sharp vision and keen sagacity, 
for instance in following a trail of foot- 
prints. 

The Miskito tribe, the most numerous 
and the strongest, formerly held all 
other tribes subject to its chief. For 
that reason also their speech became 
the common language and the mission- 
aries reduced it to writing and made it 
the church language. The character 
of the Indian has its good and its bad 
parts. Very often the missionaries 
on their difficult journeys in the wild- 


54 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Interior of the Bluefields Church. 


ee tegen 





Missionary and Natives Sawing Timber for a Church at Kukallaya. 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 55 





Two “Sukia’—Medicine Women on the Wangks River. 
Both Meta and Mary have become Christians. 


erness experienced the hospitality and 
good nature of heathen Indians. But 
their good qualities are overbalanced 
by greed, ingratitude, an implacable 
spirit of revenge, drunkenness, and 
above all by laziness. They ‘are afraid 
of work. Their national drink is mish- 
la. Almost all merchants import large 
quantities of rum, which is more harm- 
ful than mishla. Drunkenness naturally 
destroys their family life, produces 
physical and mental deterioration, often 
leads to tuberculosis and an untimely 
death. Rum spells ruin for Indians— 
and for others. Immorality and its de- 
vastating consequences are aS common 
as among other heathen. 

And what kind of a religion have 
these unfortunate natives? No com- 


fort, no improvement, no edification. 
On the contrary, the little religion they 
have entirely spoils the joy of life. 
They have an inkling of a good spirit, 
whom they call Won Aisa, that is, “Our 
Father.’ But he is not interested in men, 
neither for good or evil, and they are 
just as little interested in him. On the 
other hand the ulassa or evil spirits are 
constantly threatening evil for man. 
The three worst ulassa are those that 
control the water, the forest and the 
air. Then there are multitudes of lesser 
ulassa. They send sickness and 
death. Nobody dies a natural death. 
The ordinary man can not defend him- 
self against these evil spirits. The 
sukia alone, who is botn priest and 
magician, can exorcise the ulassa. But 





Church at Pearl Lagoon. 


56 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Church at Marshall Point, 
Out-station in the Pearl Lagoon District. 


the exorcism of evil spirits is terribly 
hard work and the sukia has a right to 
a proper compensation, which must be 
paid in the form of axes, rifles, canoes, 
cows and other useful articles. The 
sukia knows other tricks that demon- 
strate his power over life and death. 


Sometimes he ascribes a case of death 
not to the ulassa directly, but to the 
power of a secret enemy, whom only 
the all-knowing sukia knows how to 
discover. The man whom he designates 
as the guilty one invariably becomes 
the object of revenge. No one is safe 





An Indian Hut in Nicaragua. 


57 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 


"SUBIPUL Numng jo dnory VW 





WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


58 


‘J4SsIt 94} UO ‘MOI Joddn 9Yy1 UT UOS{TIM AV[paH [edroursg 
‘ESEL ‘SPIOUVOULA UT [ooyYIS Avq UOTSsTAL 





THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 59 





Indian Summer Home on the Ulang River. 


from him. Thus the sukias hold the 
people absolutely in their power. Nor 
is it to be wondered at, that this super- 
Stitious fear of the evil spirits, of be- 
ing poisoned, of blood vengeance calls 
into existence a boundless suspicion 
against every person. 

However, ‘also these people, enslaved 
in superstition and fear of death, are 
entitled to the freedom of the Gospel 
of Christ. To bring them the message 


of salvation was the object of the three 
missionaries who arrived in Bluefields, 
the then very small capital, on March 
14, 1849. Here they found mostly 
Negroes and Mulattoes, not Indians, 
but they began their work immediate- 
ly among these people. With what re- 
sult? That is shown best by the 1950 
souls that today constitute the mem- 
bership of the church there. 

The missionaries, however, had to 





Church and Bell Tower at Bilwas-karma, 
A Large Out-station of Wasla, on the Wangks River. 


60 





WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


Congregation at Kiha, 1920. Bishop Grossmann at the right. 


go along the coast in order to be true 
to their original purpose of evangeliz- 
ing the Indians. Magdala, now known 
as Pearl Lagoon, was the first station 
among them, where missionary Jurgen- 
sen laid the foundation for a prosper- 
ous congregation. 

After 29 years, he received orders 
to transfer ‘his activity to a remnant 
of the Rama Indians. About 200 of 
these lived on the island of Rama in 
the lagoon at Bluefields, about 3 or 4 
hours’ journey from the city. This 
little island soon became one of the 
bright spots of the Miskito Mission. 
About seven months after Jurgensen 
moved to this place, he baptized four 
women anda man. The blessing of 
God rested continuously on his work. 
Ten years later there were no more 
heathen on the island. The entire popu- 
lation constituted a Christian church 
deeply devoted to their faithful pastor. 

On the main land also progress was 
evident. The missionaries gradually 
advanced towards the north. Seven 
Stations had been founded in the year 
1880, viz., Bluefields almost entirely 
and Magdala partly, for colored people 
—the rest for Indians: Rama Key, 
Ephrata (now Wounta Haulover), Tas- 
bapauni, Kukallaya and Kurata. The 
year 1881 was marked by a great re- 
vival, beginning in Bluefields and Mag- 
dala. There were but few houses in 
those places where there was not one 
Or more persons, Negroes, Indians, or 
Whites, over-powered by a feeling of 
the guilt of sin, and wrestling for par- 
don and peace, in some cases even with 
very peculiar physical phenomena. 
Superintendent Martin and his assist- 
ant Piper, at that time alone in Blue- 
fields, now found themselves face to 
face with a task which taxed all their 
physical, mental and spiritual strength. 
They had to be very careful to remain 
masters of the situation and to keep 
the movement within safe and sane 
bounds. Fanaticism comes easy to the 
excitable minds of the Negroes and 
Indians. Most of them, however, were 
willing to be led, and were led wisely. 


61 


THE MISssION IN NICARAGUA 


‘JUSII oUleryxe 94} Ye TeYyOVe, oY} PUY 4Ms HIvp oy UT HULYSHOMNAD ‘org 
‘SPIOYONTA UI TOONDS YstH AOTUNL Ino 





§2 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Dories on a Nicaraguan Stream. 


In larger crowds than ever the people the power of the Spirit. Everywhere 
attended the services in the churches. they called for teachers and mission- 

After a while the revival passed over aries. Asa result of this revival, seven 
to the Indian stations farther north; new main stations were founded in the 
yes, even distant heathen villages felt succeeding 15 years — Quamwatla, 





Indian Wedding in Nicaragua. 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 63 





Rapids in the Upper Wangks River. 


Yulu, Twappi, Sharon, Dakura, Wasla 
and Sandy Bay. Two have been added 
in quite recent years, Karawala and 
Cape Gracias a Dios. From here the 
missionary influence was carried be- 
yond the nearby boundary line into 
Honduras. 

After the coast had been supplied 
with sufficient stations, the missionaries 
also accepted invitations from tribes 
living along the rivers farther in the 
interior. Especially did the Sumu In- 
dians seem to offer a great opportunity 
for soul-saving work, after many of 
them were found fit for baptism at the 
Quamwatla station. The tribe itself 
lived in complete heathenism. 

Still farther to the north, on the 
Wangks River, a great advance into 
the interior was made, when Wasla 


was founded on its lower course and, 
in 1907, Sangsangta, roughly speaking 
about half-way up the river. In 1925 
plans were formed for a station among 
the Sumu Indians, at Musawas, far in 
the primeval forests on the Waspuk. 
The Spirit of God was working might- 
ily among the Sumus. On one day 262 
Sumus were baptized at Musawas. This 
mission is thus characterized by an 
eager advance through simple evangel- 
ization of heathen untouched by the 
Gospel. At this time the older congre- 
gations can not yet be deprived of the 
careful nurture and training given by 
American and European missionaries. 
For, after seasons of great refreshing, 
there come also times of retrogression 
in spiritual life. Seasons of special 
evangelistic efforts that have in recent 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


64 


‘euUTM Je codjoH 


*(4z2D) 


QO perlsTy puv JuvATES puv ATIUIVY pure (Ue 


rt) 4rdr 


VIAL SNIZVUSL ISIlesuvAT 





THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 


saison 





House at Dakura. 


ission 


Mi 


65 


66 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The New Mission House at Cabo Gracias a Dios (Old Cape), 1925. 
Present home of the Rev. K. G. Hamilton. 


years been held at various of these old We must not pass over in silence 
stations have been blessed of God for the special troubles and difficulties of 
spiritual renewing and for a deepen- the missionaries, of which they. have 
ing of the life of faith. plenty to offset the joys of their suc- 





Sumu Indian Congregation at Wasikin 
The cross indicates Brother Jiminez, the evangelist. 
This church was built by the Indians; it has walls of cedar and a mahogany floor. 


THE MISSION IN NICARAGUA 67 





An Exploratory Journey into Honduras. 


cess. The sukia do not take kindly to 
their diminishing power and oppose 
the missionaries wherever possible. 
The political upheavals that occur rath- 
er frequently have a bad effect on the 
work. In 1894 the government made 
demands on Moravian schools that 
were impossible of fulfilment and for 
some years the schools were closed. 
The church could not properly educate 
its own young people and the govern- 
ment offered nothing in place of the 
schools it had closed. The best pos- 
sible use was made of the Sunday 


Schools, with the assistance of native 
helpers, but they could not entirely take 
the place of the day school system that 
had been developed to a reasonably 
high degree of efficiency. A later re- 
volution again proclaimed freedom 
for church and school and since 1911 
permission has been obtained to open 
schools at mission. stations. There 
seems, however, to be no end of revo- 
lutions and rumors of revolutions. As 
a consequence, there is great restless- 
ness and a feeling of insecurity, which 
has adversely affected the economic 





Indian Hut under a Bread-fruit Tree. 


68 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


life of Nicaragua. The missionaries 
and the missions suffer under the con- 
dition. Industry and trade show a 
marked decline. Especially the Indian 
congregations have become consider- 
ably impoverished. The business car- 
ried on by the mission also greatly de- 
clined. The need for the miussion- 
trade is not as great as it was original- 
ly and has now practically been brought 
to an end. 

Is that not trouble enough? But we 
have not yet stated that the elements 
every now and then do terrible damage. 
Tornadoes, as in 1906 and 1908, and 
spring-floods have more than once de- 
stroyed stations entirely and brought 


actual starvation for natives in their 
train. The saddest of all disasters un- 
doubtedly happened to Bluefields, when 
in 1900, 1903 and 1909 it was largely 
destroyed by fire. The Mission suffered 
heavy loss in the destruction of 
many of its houses, but several of its 
main buildings, especially the large 
church and the home of the mission- 
aries, were spared each time, although 
almost in the very path of destruction. 
Thus the faithful workers have abun- 
dant proof that God is with them and 
that the promise applies to them: 
‘They that sow in tears, shall reap with 
joy.” 





Rama Key and Native Homes in Nicaragua. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE WEST INDIES AND DEMERARA 


HE West Indies are the oldest and 
the largest mission of the Mora- 
vian Church. The climate in gen- 

eral is tropical and in low places on the 
coast very unhealthy for Europeans; 
indeed, many lives have fallen prey to 
the climate. Fortunately the sea-breezes 
frequently bring relief and the higher 
elevations of the interior are very 
healthful. Hurricanes and_ earth- 
quakes have done terrible damage, as 
in 1907 when Kingston was practically 
destroyed, and in 1912 when great 
havoc was done on the western coast 
of Jamaica, where most of the Mora- 
vian stations are located, and in 1924 
when the eastern islands were visited 
with destruction. In spite of all that, 
there is something peculiarly attrac- 
tive in a West Indian landscape. The 


g 
a 7 


aN 
— s ri 
Lea, ) > 


JAMAICA. [SS 


ground is very fertile. Bananas, corn, 
cocoa palms, and many other southern 
fruits grow in almost rank abundance. 
The cultivation of tobacco, coffee, cot- 
ton, cocoa and especially sugar-cane at- 
tracted white colonists soon after the 
discovery of America. This ever in- 
creasing inrush of fortune-hunters has 
had some very sad consequences. The 
original inhabitants, the Carib Indians, 
were exterminated. To supply the 
need of laborers, the plantation own- 


ers brought in thousands of negro 
slaves. Not till 1838 were the slaves 
manumitted (freed) on the English 
Islands and in 1848 on the Danish 
Islands. (Virgin Islands of the U. S.) 
The freeing of the slaves did not at 
once remove the consequences of slav- 
ery, and the mission work suffers from 
it to the present day. Marriage and 
parenthood were not honored in slavery 
days. Every demand of decency was 
denied. Slaves and masters mutually 
suffered from such a condition. The 
inescapable consequence was such a 
thorough-going destruction of all moral 
impulses that even the Christian con- 
gregations today have great trouble in 
the matter of morality. Illiteracy, 
superstition, sexual vice, and poverty 
are the four great evils of these islands. 
Whatever heathen religion these poor 
slaves may have brought from Africa 
was violently suppressed; every public 
practice of their native religion was 
prohibited. But no human being can 
exist without some kind of religion; 
hence the slaves practiced their heathen 
superstitions so much the more eager- 


*) 
: Barbadas 
To ° 


_— 


Lite = eve —S 
S oulh Cone roca. 
= ——s 
xs 


Our West Indian Mission Field. 
Hayti is also called San Domingo. 


70 WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


ly in secret. The worship of “obia” is 
the worst. Obias are various kinds of 
articles, utterly worthless in them- 
selves, but to which secret and magic 
powers have been ascribed. Some- 
times they are carried on the person as 
amulettes. This practice has not yet 
disappeared among the Christianized 
negroes and mulattoes, even though no 
superficial observer, and perhaps not 
even every missionary discovers the 
practice. 

On the 13th of December, 1732, the 
first Moravian missionaries landed on 
the island of St. Thomas, then a Danish 
possession. They were Leonard Dober 
and David Nitschmann—the first mis- 
stonaries to the heathen of the Renewed 
Moravian Church. They came _ to 
preach the grace of Jesus Christ to the 
Slaves in all simplicity and without 
much ado. They supported themselves 
at first, and precariously at that, by the 
work of their own hands. In free 


time they visited the slaves in their 


Shacks. Other workers soon followed, 
some going to St. Croix, and later 
still others to St. Johns. They had 
bitter experiences to make. The 
planters objected to their presence. 
The unhealthy climate collected a 
heavy toll of precious lives. In all their 
distress, the ever increasing success of 
the simple proclamation of the Gospel, 
the manifest blessing of God, again 
and again saved them from despair 
and kept alive their courage and en- 
thusiasm. When Zinzendorf visited 
the mission in 1739, its success already 
was assured. A brief review of the 
work in the various islands during the 
past almost 200 years plainly shows 
how the hand of God has rested in 
blessing upon these people violently 
torn from their African homes—and, 
alas, so bitterly enslaved in their for- 
eign home. 

Let us look at St. Thomas first, 
where the mission began. Today every- 
thing looks different there than in the 





The Fine Harbor of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. 
Here Moravian Missions were begun in 1732. 


THE WEsT INDIES AND DEMERARA 71 


day of the beginning. Then most of 
the inhabitants lived on the plantations 
in various parts of the island. The 
missionaries also lived in the country, 
and, besides New Herrnhut, had found- 
ed a second mission farther to the west, 
Nisky. After the freedom of the slaves 
was proclaimed, the population moved 
into the busy port-city, St. Thomas. 
This then became Moravian head- 
quarters. When in 1882 the sesqui- 
centennial of this mission was. cele- 
brated, the beautiful church in honor 
of this event was erected here. The 
schools of the church became a matter 
of great moment for the entire island 
when in the middle of the 19th century 
the government placed the control of 
public education in the care of the 
church. 

The island of St. Croix, towards the 
south, is larger than St. Thomas. “The 
Garden of the Antilles” it is called, be- 
cause of its fertility and it makes the 
most beautiful and most cultivated im- 
pression of all the Virgin Islands. The 
beginnings of the mission were hard 
enough, but blessed days soon came 


for the three stations, Friedenstal, 
Friedensberg, and Friedensfeld. In 
late years the number of communi- 
cants has been decreasing. One of 
the reasons for this is that poor busi- 
ness and labor conditions have forced 
large numbers of people to go else- 
where for work. 

The loss of population is most 
marked on St. Johns, where two form- 
erly very successful stations, Bethany 
and Emmaus, are now in the care of 
one missionary. 

As for the Lesser Antilles, we go 
first to St. Kitts. All these islands ex- 
cept San Domingo, belong to England. 
Here Moravian work as usual made 
a small and hard start and then pros- 
pered. Earthquake, hurricane, and yel- 
low fever several times caused great 
harm. There are four congregations 
here now and their members have a 
good reputation for their Christianity. 

A short journey takes us to the 
larger island of Antigua. Moravian 
work began here in 1756 in a very 
small way. Later under the leadership 
of Peter Braun, a remarkably gifted 





Our Station Nisky on the Island St. Thomas. 


ic WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





A Native’s Cottage on Tobago. 


winner of souls, there came ‘times of 
refreshing,” during his 22 years of ser- 
vice, aS in no other Moravian mission 
field. When Braun came in 1769 he 
found a little group of 14 converts; 
when he died, in 1791, the two con- 
gregations of negro Christians num- 
bered 7,400. Numbers are not most 
important. Greater reason for joy 
was found in the fact that these con- 
verts did honor to the Christian name. 
The planters and even the government 
acknowledged that through the _ in- 
fluence of the mission public security 
and public morality had very notice- 
ably been lifted to a higher level. 
There are two institutions that have 
had great value for the whole of the 
West Indian mission, both of them in 
the capital city, St. Johns: the Sem- 
inary for Native Women _ Teachers 
founded in 1855, and the Theological 


Seminary at Buxton Grove, a suburb 
of St. Johns, founded in 1900, for the 
training of native ministers for both 
Provinces. The exigencies of the 
World War closed the latter institution. 

Travelling now to the south, we 
reach Barbados after quite a journey. 
Here Moravian activity began in 1765. 
Sickness and death among the mission- 
aries, and the unreceptiveness of the 
people’s hearts seemed to make a 
happy development impossible; yet 
steadily, even if slowly, progress was 
made. The good will of the planters, 
implacable in their opposition to the 
missionaries, was suddenly won when 
in 1816 the Christian negroes refused 
to participate in a rebellion of slaves. 

On the next island, Tobago, the 
name of one station still reminds us 
of the founder of the mission—Mont- 
gomery. 


THE WEsT INDIES AND DEMERARA 73 


The first two attempts, in 1790 and 
1799 failed. The third attempt in 1826 
was so much the more successful. The 
members of the three congregations 
remain loyal to their Church. Mora- 
vian schools on this island are particu- 
larly excellent and have often received 
public praise for their successful work. 

Last in ‘this chain of islands is 
Trinidad. It is the largest and econo- 
mically the most developed of the 
Lesser Antilles. For that reason Trin- 
idad has received a considerable pro- 
portion of the population forced out 
of the other islands by lack of work, 
some of whom were Moravians. In 
the year 1890 missionaries followed 
their converts to Trinidad. 

The 20 congregations on the island 
of Jamaica have been organized into 
a separate mission province. Pros- 
pects for success were not good when 
the first missionaries arrived in 1754; 
they were received with the message: 
“Here in Jamaica we have no God.” 
So said the planters. For 60 years the 
results were meager—then a new 


spirit came over the people. Largely 
under the leadership of the Baptists, 
great revivals occurred. The Moravian 
work felt the great impetus and from 
1815 on the converts began to increase 
and station after station was founded. 
The next and perhaps the greatest 
period of spiritual revival and growth 
fell in the two decades following the 
freeing of the slaves in 1838. Much 
credit for this is due to the energetic 
leadership of the missionary, Jacob 
Zorn, a man with a vision. The devel- 
opment and organization of the very 
extensive educational efforts on the 
island is largely his work. In 1842 he 
became the founder of the first Teach- 
ers’ Institute, which in the course of 
the years trained a large number of 
thoroughly efficient teachers for the 
mission schools. In 1900 it had to be 
closed because the government took 
entire control of the training of teach- 
ers. A Training School for Women 
Teachers was founded in 1861, trans- 
ferred to Bethlehem, Jamaica, in 1887, 
and is still in a flourishing condition 





Memorial Church and Mission House in Charlotte Amalia, St. Thomas. 


WorLD-WIDE MoRAVIAN MISSIONS 


"Ss uIOL 


4S Uo STITH 94} 


puy snvururg 





THE West INDIES AND DEMERARA 75 














Ruins of the Church at Emmaus, St. John’s, 1916. 


The hurricane swept the roof down to the sea, 300 feet away. 
The stone walls were 2 feet thick. 


today and is enjoying the support of 
the government. Moravian schools 
on the island are very efficient and 
compare very favorably with other 
schools. 

There is a special reason for satis- 


LS AI An an Hehe op 
Ys 7 GRATES 





faction, when one takes a general re- 
trospective view of the entire West 
Indian work. For the plan of the 
Church systematically to develop the 
mission congregations into self-support- 
ing, self-governing, and self-propagat- 


< 


1396 BLESS THE LDR 


Interior of the Spring Gardens Church, St. Johns, Antigua. 


WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


76 


. 


punoise1loy 94} UL UOTJVSI918U00 VY} JO SA9vdqO puY ‘10jSVd ‘euLOgSsO 
“SOpeqivg ‘TITH UOUTIO 7% UOTNYSea13u0g 


UM. 


AOY PUL 





THE WEstT INDIES AND DEMERARA [2 





Seminary for Native Women Teachers 
St. John’s, Antigua. Rev. J. E. Weiss in the center. 


ing provinces of the international 
Moravian Church has here come closer 
to fulfillment than anywhere else. The 
plan for the independence of the mis- 


sionary church was strikingly  illus- 
trated at the General Synod of 1899, 
when for the first time three ordained 
native ministers, all negroes, were 





Southboro Boys’ School and Clifton Hill Girls’ School, Barbados. 


78 WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


The Rev. John A. Buckley, 1818-1884 
First Native 


Minister of the Moravian 
.Ordained by Bishop Westerby 
He served Greenbay, Jamaica, 28 


Church. 
1856. 
years. 


welcomed as advisory members. So 
far as the West Indies are concerned, 
both the Jamaica and Eastern West 
Indian Provinces have their executive 
boards (Provincial Elders’ Confer- 
ences) and their Provincial Synods. 
The problem of the independence of 
the missionary church has, however, 
not been entirely solved in the West 
Indies. The training of a qualified 
corps of native teachers and ministers 
has not yet been accomplished, though 
some individual teachers and ministers 
have been trained who are entirely re- 
liable and whose work has unquestion- 
ably been honored of God. Financially 
also the mission has not actually reach- 
ed the point of self-support. Perhaps 
this must be ascribed primarily to the 
poor economic conditions of the islands. 
Most of the members are desperately 
poor. Acknowledgment should be 
made of the fact that the congregations 








do as much as their circumstances 
permit in contributing to the support 
of their local church work. Since 1909 
the General Mission Treasury of the 
international Moravian Church con- 
tributes nothing to the support of na- 
tive ministers and the building of 
churches and parsonages. 

A still further proof of their worth- 
iness of being considered a native 
Christian Church is this:—they recog- 
nize the missionary obligation as rest- 
ing on themselves. In their own con- 
gregations, established of old, the win- 
ning of heathen for Christ of course 
is out of the question. So they looked 
for the opportunity of doing genuine 
mission-work on the island of Haiti. 
Some of their own members had 
moved thither. In the Republic of 
San Domingo they found an opportun- 
ity in 1907 to begin a mission in the 
town called Macoris and in its environ- 
ment. In a comparatively short time 
a congregation of 800 souls was gath- 


Church in Macoris, San Domingo. 


THE WEsT INDIES AND DEMERARA 79 


rauiy 





A Village of Thatched Huts in Jamaica. 
Also the Chief Means of Transport. 


80 


WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The Salem Church on Jamaica. 


The Beautiful Surroundings of Fairfield, Jamaica. 





+S 


THE WEst INDIES AND DEMERARA 81 





Returning from Chapel Service in Jamaica. 


ered, and a church and parsonage built. 
That was the 10th island on which 
Moravian work was established. Op- 
portunities to preach the Gospel cer- 
tainly still are plentiful, but here, as 
everywhere else, the primary trouble 
is the lack of workers and of financial 
support. There are now 12,600 bap- 
tized members in our Jamaica mission 
and 22,600 in the Eastern Province 
(9 islands.) 

An offshoot of the West-Indian mis- 
sion should be mentioned here: 


Demerara, in British Guiana, South 
America. As early as 1738 an unsuc- 
cessful effort was made to bring the 
Gospel to the Arawak Indians, who 
have long since disappeared. After 
some years of patient seed-sowing, the 
harvest of souls became large, but an 
epidemic of fever killed very many 
people and rebellious negroes burned 
the station, Pilgerhut. Natives also 
destroyed the second station, Sharon. 
The third station, Ephraim, had to be 
moved to higher ground because of the 





A View of Carmel, among the Hills of Jamaica. 


82 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The Church at Montgomery, Tobago. 


Thisyystation sis) named in | honor son ethe 
father of James Montgomery, the poet, 
who was the first missionary to Tobago. 


numerous inundations, and was named men who claimed they were Ameri- 
Hoop. The effort was very successful, cans; soon afterwards enemies fired 
until the missionary was exiled because the station. In 1808 this mission was 
he had entertained stranded English- discontinned. Many Moravian West 





A Glimpse of tne Church at Basseverre, St. Kitts. 


THE WEsT INDIES AND DEMERARA 83 





Church at L’Anse 


Indians, especially from Barbados, 
sought work here and in 1878 a pious 
planter urged the Moravian Church to 
look after its own people and reach out 
after the neglected colored population. 
Three congregations of negroes have 
since been established; first on the 
plantation called Graham’s Hall, next 
in the village Beterverwachting and 
finally in Queenstown, a part of the 
CAD eCliVemOlemcorceiown.) | lhe 


Noire, Trinidad. 


faithful and conscientious efforts of 
native teachers in the schools has re- 
ceived the merited recognition of the 
government. The governor himself, 
at a missionary meeting in the church 
at Queenstown in 1910, gave the mis- 
sion in all its branches of work his un- 
qualified endorsement. The most 
characteristic feature of the mission 
lies in this fact: it was begun and car- 
ried on successfully by West Indian 





Panorama of E. Basseterre, St. Kitts. 


84 WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





ji 


i 


H 


Church at Beterverwachting, Demerara. 


native ministers and helpers only. That 
surely reflects great glory upon the 
West Indian mission. At the present 
time, the superintendent is John Ding- 
wall, a native of Jamaica. It now has 
a membership of over 1600 souls. The 
assistance given by the general trea- 
sury of the Moravian Church is an al- 
most negligible amount. While it is 


true that most of the members are bap- 
tized members of other Moravian con- 
gregations, there nevertheless is oppor- 
tunity for genuine evangelization 
among the East Indian coolies, who are 
brought here, as also to Trinidad and 
Surinam, as contract-laborers on the 
plantations. 





The Market in Georgetown, Demerara. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE MISSION IN 


APETOWN is the capital of what, 
Since the Great War, is called the 
Union of South Africa. It re- 

ceived its name from the Cape of Good 
Hope. Portuguese seafarers first dis- 
covered and claimed the land, but in 
1609 a strip of land stretching east- 
ward from Capetown passed into the 
possession of Holland. England is 
‘in possession of the colony since 1806 
and ever since has persistently enlarg- 
ed her holdings until today England 
Owns an enormous territory stretching 
far north into the interior. 


The moderately warm and dry cli- 
mate suits Europeans very well. A 
perfect stream of white settlers has run 
over the southern part of the colony. 
At first they were mostly Hollanders, 
who settled on the land as farmers and 
cattle-breeders (Boers); later they 


SOUTH AFRICA 


were mostly English, who became trad- 
ers in the rapidly growing harbor 
towns. The whites exert a controlling 
influence practically everywhere, even 
though they are not yet numerically 
in the ascendancy. 

The original inhabitants in the west- 
ern part of South Africa, the former 
Cape Colony, were Hottentots; they 
have practically disappeared. Multi- 
tudes of mixed breeds, with short, 
black, kinky hair and strange grayish- 
yellow skin, plainly show their Hotten- 
tot origin. Even these are being rap- 
idly displaced by the dominion of the 
white race. In place of the Hottentots, 
recent decades show a very decided 
influx of East Indians and Malays. 
These are all Mohammedans, followers 
of the religion called Islam, and, in 
the Dutch spoken in the colony, are 





The Station Goedverwacht, S. Africa. 


86 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Eottentot School Children. 


called “‘Slanis.” The Chinese also are 
wellserepresented; wiicrem ineretorc, 
and especially in the port towns, as in 
Surinam and the West Indies, the popu- 
lation is decidedly mixed as to race. 
In the eastern section of the colony, 
we find an entirely different situation. 
The natives here are Kaffirs, a branch 
of the Bantu Negroes. In virility they 
far outdo the western mixed breeds. 





G re) “ey ae) H oO 


Plateau of Aa 
Great Karroo 


Clarksang 


Our South African Mission Field. 





















87 


THE MISSION IN. SOUTH: AFRICA 








Home. 


ir 


ily and The 


A Christian Kaffir Fam 


Shoat nade omc nyetens 


i Be 





S. Africa. 


ini, 


The Klipplaat River near Eugot 


88 WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


The name means “infidel”—given by 
the Arabs of East Africa to all pagan 
natives. They number several hundred 
thousand. They have kept a much 
larger measure of independence. Be- 
cause they are strong, self-conscious, 
and warlike and usually are led by 
manly and thoroughly capable native 
chieftains, they did not willingly yield 
to foreign domination. They disputed 
inch by inch the eastward advance of 
the conquering Europeans, especially 
in the years from 1835 to 1881. The 
invaders often paid very dearly for 
their victories. The mission also suf- 
fered greatly during the long years of 
warfare. 

Culturally the Kaffirs had reached a 
relatively high state of development. 
They were fairly prosperous, owing to 
their success as cattle-breeders and 
farmers. They lived fairly comfortable 
lives in their “kraals’—round huts 
built in small groups, often at consider- 


able distance from each other. Com- 
munity and family life is regulated 
by carefully planned rules, even in de- 
tails. Marriage, really nothing but the 
purchase of women, is very minutely 
regulated. Women, as other articles 
of value, are bought with oxen. Herds 
of oxen are the Kaffir’s most valuable 
capital, and he knows well how to 
care for them. Besides the purchase 
of women, or polygamy, there are 
several other moral or immoral cus- 
toms peculiar to the Kaffirs: such as 
the wild festivities connected with com- 
pulsory circumcision as a pre-requis- 
ite for recognition as a full member 
of the tribe, and the endless carousals, 
featured by drinking enormous quanti- 
ties of intoxicating “Kaffir-beer.” 

Such customs are a sad hindrance to 
the success of the missionaries’ labors. 
Not only do they have a firm hold on 
the people; they are even to some ex- 
tent connected with their ancestral re- 





The Mission House at Shiloh, Cape Colony. 
Our Oldest Station among the Kaffirs, 


THE MISSION 


IN SOUTH AFRICA 89 





Church and Congregation 


ligion. They are firmly wedded to tra- 
dition. While various tribes of these 
people have differing religious cus- 
toms, there are some fundamental ideas 
they all have in common, above all, 


at Gnadental, S. Africa. 


the worship of the spirits of the dead, 
especially of ancient worthies and of 
famous chiefs. They reverence cer- 
tain animals, as several varieties of 
snakes, because the spirits of the fore- 





Harvest Festival Bazaar at Gnadental. 


90 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





* * 






Church and Congregation at Engotini, S. Africa. 


An Ox-team at the Mill, Shiloh, S. Africa. 


i i i a se ae 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 91 


bears may inhabit them. The priests, 
experts in magic, are believed to have 
the power of communing with these 
spirits, and then to influence them in 
the power they have over human des- 
tiny. These sorcerers also have won 
great respect as rain-makers. 


They are 





difficult, Moravian mission work in this 
country is divided into two Provinces— 
the Western and the Eastern. 

The first Protestant missionary to 
Cape Colony was George Schmidt, a 
simple but faithfilled Christian. He 
spent six years in prison for his faith, 


A Forest Scene in S. Africa. 


thought to have entire custody of all 
knowledge, recollection and anticipa- 
tion and to be endued with supernatur- 
al powers. 


Because the population of the west- | 


ern and eastern part of the colony is 
so diverse, and because originally 


travel between the two sections was. 


* farmers. 


in his native-land, Moravia; that inured 
him to hardship. At age 26, in 1737, 
he reached Capetown, and forthwith 
went out into the country to preach 
the Gospel to the Hottentots, kept in 
hard bondage by the Boers, or white 
In Bavianskloof he found 
a willing response, but the bitter en- 


92 WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Xentu Church and School, South Africa. 


mity of the whites forced him to stop 
his work. After seven years, he left 
his congregation of 7 baptized Chris- 
tians and 40 adherents. He never for-- 
got his Africans. In August, 1785, he 
died while on his knees praying for 
Africa—like Livingstone 88 years later. 

The white colonists despised the 
“shepsels” i. e. creatures, as they 


called the negroes whom Schmidt tried 
to save. But God thought better of 
them. In 1792, three Moravian mis- 
Sionaries came to Capetown and re- 
newed the mission on its ancient site. 
They found a pear-tree in Schmidt’s 
garden—and also old Magdalena whom 
he baptized,—80 years old and blind, 
but still cherishing her Dutch Bible. 





Bible Class at Tabase, S. Africa. 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 93 





Mission School Boys Pounding Rice at Gnadental. 


ner onre 


is aiden i Bc 


—? dei ak 





General View of Baziya, Kaffraria. 


94 


WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


i ee 





The Church at Enon, S. Africa. 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 95 


Here they eagerly went to work, and 
soon changed the name Bavianskloof 
(Baboons’ Glen) to Genadendaal— 
Valley of Grace—which today is a 
Christian town of over 3000 souls. 
The opposition of the Boers caused 
the workers trouble enough—till Cape 
Colony passed into the control of the 
British, and fortunately they showed a 
kindlier disposition towards missionary 
effort among the blacks. During the 


whole of the 19th century, the mission 


vo ; Kaffir Boy-herders and Their “Steeds.” 


showed an almost uninterrupted pro- 
gress. There are.now.11'main stations, 
three well-developed filials » and. 21 
preaching-places, ‘spread pretty thor- 
oughly over the:entire. western area of 
Cape Cofony!.The ancient notion that 
the brown: people, if they had souls at 
all,,surely were not capable of culture 
and Christian living has long ago been 
definitely disproved. What God’s grace 
has accomplished among these peopie 
even today amazes visitors to this mis- 
sion. 


Hans Peter Hallbeck, superintend- 
ent of this mission from 1817-1840, 
deserves special mention among a long 
list of devoted workers. It was largely 
his careful and energetic activity that 
made possible the growth of the mis- 
sion into a separate province. He 
greatly developed the school system. A 
genuine lover of children, he called 
into existence schools for small chil- 
dren and Sunday Schools. He did as 
much as he could for the usual day- 





schools. He clearly foresaw the im- 
portance of proper training for native 
helpers and so in 1838 founded the 
Training School in Genadendaal, from 
which have graduated a large number 
of excellent teachers and also, later on, 
very useful native helpers and native 
ministers. 

The educational and spiritual train- 
ing given in this institution has con- 
tributed much to the attainment of 
churchly self-support by these congre- 
gations and to the conscious effort to 





96 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





A Christian Kaffir Girl 


achieve a native independent church. 
Several of the congregations now have 
theologically trained native pastors. In 
1922, the first conference or synod of 
the native Church was held. All this 
shows that the final aim of missionary 
activity has been almost attained in this 
old field. A strong impetus in this di- 
rection was given by the absolute neces- 
sity of diminishing the European force 
of workers—to save expense. The 
native Christians have thereby been 
inspired to shoulder a greater responsi- 
bility for their cause—and that is a 
good thing. 

The three largest stations are Gena- 
dendaal, Mamre and Elim. The sec- 


ond and third of these not many years 
ago celebrated their centenary—a hun- 
dred years of stress and storm as well 
as of good work and great blessing. 
In 1924 Elim observed its one-hun- 
dredth anniversary. This is the south- 
ernmost mission station in Africa—at 
Cape Agultras. 

In spite of certain weaknesses that 
seem to be in the blood, the colored 
Christians, “God’s stepchildren,’ have 
proved themselves as decidedly cap- 
able of culture. Their faith in Christ 
is real. In recent years, political and 
race questions have had a very disturb- 
ing effect upon many and have lessened 
their interest in spiritual things. Their 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 97 


musical ability is excellent. The sing- 
ing of the congregations is very in- 
spiring and carefully trained trombone 
players add very much to the solemnity 
especially of festival occasions. 


In addition to their evangelistic ef- 
fort, the missionaries from the begin- 
ning fostered industry and trade, in 
order to relieve the congregations at 
home as much as possible in the matter 
of financial support. A mission busi- 
ness in charge of trained business men 
has been developed, which in good 
years shows a considerable profit in 
support of the mission. 

We can here only in passing allude 
to a matter that troubled this mission 
for many years. The old stations were 
called “Grant stations,’ and the law 
which made them such recognized the 
mission as proprietor of the land, but 
made it responsible not only for the re- 
ligious activities of the church, but also 
for the civil administration of the com- 
munity life in all respects. Such an 
arrangement no longer seemed to fit 
into modern conditions and caused a 
number of unhealthy developments. 
In the year 1909, the government ab- 
rogated this law and replaced it with 
a new one—thereby fulfilling a long- 
cherished hope of the missionaries. 
They were relieved of a number of 
civil and police duties, which often in- 
terfered with their spiritual functions. 
On the other hand, the responsibility 
for self-government in community mat- 
ters was placed more directly on the 
colored population. 

This mission also felt the evil effects 
of a thoroughgoing mental and eco- 
nomic revolution. South Africa felt 
the great modern rebellion against 
things as they were as much as the rest 
of the world. First came the Boer 
War, in the years 1899 to 1902. It 
ruined the mission business. The 
native members became greatly im- 
poverished. Worst of all, the relation 
of the European’ missionary towards 
the colored population became much 
more difficult than formerly. The ra- 
cial self-consciousness of the colored 
people developed suddenly—and went 





A Kaffir Who Has a Fondness for Music. 


to extremes, especially during and 
after the World War. The “Ethiopian 
Movement,” with its slogan: “Africa 
for the Africans,” greatly developed 
the demand for complete colored inde- 
pendence, for which they probably were 
not altogether ready. With it there 
came a lack of confidence and, in some 
cases, even opposition to the mission- 
aries, merely because they were white. 
Race hatred is a terrible thing, and it 
made some of the converts forget that, 
whatever may have been the wrongs 
inflicted by the white race, the mis- 
sionaries certainly were not actuated 
by any motives other than the temporal 
and eternal welfare of the natives. 
Another great change has been 
caused by the movement of the country 
population tcwards the cities. The 
Stations in the country have lost many 
of their younger members. The mis- 
sionaries must follow these members 
into the towns in order not to lose 
them entirely. So they were finally 
compelled to organize congregations in 


98 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN Missions 


Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The 
country districts are largely Christian- 
ized by this time; yet, now and then 
conversions from  heathenism take 
place. About 80 adult baptisms are 
reported annually from this district. 
The most developed congregations thus 
have the opportunity of engaging in 


used. Farther east, in such congre- 
gations as Baziya and Tabase, and in 
all the newer places begun within the 
last 30 years—which also are the most 
populous—the missionaries deal with 
Kaffirs only. 

Mvenyane is probably the most im- 
portant of this group of stations, parti- 





Home of a Kaffir Chief. 


evangelistic effort among their own 
people and thus have their share in 
bringing in the Kingdom of God. 
Eastward the path of the mission 
took its way. In such stations as 
Shilo, Goshen and Engotini, the two 
races, Hottentots and Kaffirs, inter- 
mingled and that made the mission- 
aries’ work difficult, because, among 
other things, two languages had to be 


cularly because it is the site of a Train- 
ing School for Native Teachers since 
1901, which has an enrollment of from 
60-100 pupils. Hence the work of the 
schools has been greatly developed and 
this has a direct bearing on the evan- 
gelization of the people. The oppor- 
tunity is wonderful. One third of the 
4200 scholars are children of heathen. 

The time has come for the more ma- 


99 


THE MIssION IN SOUTH AFRICA 


‘eOlISW ‘Ss 


‘WHE 38 SOTITT JO PIelT V 





100 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


a 


2 Sammolacse S° 





The Church and Congregation at Shiloh, S. Africa. 








is Gly. S "adak 


Ota ig Ps tcl «ad 5 & , : é feo 
- ae ES allie . E 


Houses of Christian Kaffirs. 


THE MISSION IN SOUTH AFRICA 


ture Kaffir Christians to assist the mis- 
sionaries in proclaiming the Gospel 
among their native people. Besides 
the 5 native ministers and a consider- 
able number of trained teachers, about 
100 evangelists voluntarily engage in 
faithful Christian work and on Sun- 
days go out in all directions to preach 
the Word of God to natives in their 
kraals. The missionaries unaided could 
never sow the Good Seed in so many 
different places. With native aid, it is 
possible to hold services regularly in 
43 out-stations and 150 _ preaching- 
places, in addition to the 13 main sta- 
tions under the care of white mission- 
aries. 

Progress is being made in the devel- 
opment of this mission into a native 
church. Each congregation works 
under its own constitution and, in 1912, 
the first conference (synod) was held. 
Some of the more modern methods of 
church work have done much to 
further the spiritual life of the people; 
such are: societies for Bible reading, 
prayer circles, temperance organiza- 
tions, district conventions and evangel- 
istic efforts held in various congrega- 
tions in turn, with participation by all 
neighboring churches. This is truly re- 
markable, especially when one remem- 
bers what difficulties formerly con- 
fronted the Kaffir mission. For de- 
cades the bloody Kaffir-wars did not 
permit either the Kaffirs or the mis- 
sion to have enduring peace. Six sta- 
tions were totally destroyed during 
such wars. Economically the whole 
country was ruined more than once by 
drought—or by terrible swarms of 
locusts which devoured every green 
thing; occasionally, also, the rinder- 
pest (cattle plague) killed most of 
their cattle. Then there was neither 
work nor food for the people. 

Finally, difficulties of mind and of 
morals also piayed their part. At every 
station there is a nucleus of faithful 
and reliable souls, but some dissatis- 
fied spirits sowed the seeds of their 
dissatisfaction and caused strife and 
conflict. This is the situation today, 
and it is hoped that a better day is 


101 





Kaffir Children at Tabase, S. Africa. 


102 


near, since the abrogation of the 
“Grant-station” constitution, (the main 
source of native disaffection) and the 
introduction, under government super- 
vision, of a new law with reference to 
mission stations. At the newer sta- 
tions, it still is necessary constantly 
to guard against superstition and heath- 
en practices which have an _ almost 
stranglehold on the individual, and 
even baptized Christians find it diffi- 
cult to shake them off. The “Ethiopic 
Church” is fostering an unfortunate 
because premature movement for en- 





WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


tire ecclesiastical independence. It is 
making capital of the ever-increasing 
racial self-consciousness of the Kaffirs, 
and has caused restlessness and dis- 
turbance in some of the congregations. 

Nevertheless, one must thankfully 
recognize the fine progress made by 
these Kaffir Christians. Within one 
generation, the statistics show an in- 
crease of communicants from 5,800 to 
13,100, among whom there occurs an 
annual average of 200 heathen bap- 
tisms. The future of such a work 
must be bright. 














A Kaffir Convert. 


Mrs. Marianne Mazwi 
Five of her six Sons served the church as 
teachers or ministers in South Africa, East. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 
I—THE NYASA MISSION 


When in 1883 Germany acquired 
this territory, far more extensive than 
the “Fatherland” itself, and called it 
German East Africa, the Moravian 
Church in Germany desired to bear its 
Share of the responsibility for the spir- 
itual welfare of the multitudes of the 


among the Konde people, at the North 
end of Lake Nyasa. Both the land 
and the people were such that there 
seemed to be no reason why the work- 
ers should not be successful from the 
first, even though they had to get 
along practically without every civil- 





Our Station Rungwe in Nyasa. 


new, pagan subjects. But how obtain 
the means for such an expensive work? 
The Moravian Church then was already 
carrying so extensive a inission work 
that its cost literally was beyond its 
power to support. Just then, and quite 
unexpectedly, a large legacy came to 
the church for missionary purposes. 
The money was at hand, provided by 
the Lord. Next the question arose as 
to the location, in the vast territory, 
of the Moravian mission. 

After careful study of the situation, 
it was decided to place a_ mission 


ized means of making life comfortable. 
European culture had not in any way 
touched these people. There was not 
even a sure means of contact with 
civilization, far distant as that was. 
Travel by caravan was expensive, time- 
killing, and hard on health. The cli- 
mate is tropical and the early mission- 
aries suffered much from it and some 
died. Malaria and other dangerous 
fevers are common and interfere with 
the work of the messengers. 

On the other hand, favorable factors 
also abounded. “A field white unto 


104 


eae 
KONGO LR ty ie 
tint My; 
Killimant%or 
rears a 
PREE- Lara ont 


Tpole Ps 3 Sikonge 








WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


4p 
R tf fi anzibor _ 
C4 Vs 


SS 
e iD 723Salam 


= 4 
ey: 4 
‘kh e 


A Pre-war Map of East Central Africa. 


the harvest” had undoubtedly been 
given to the Church. The products of 
nature gave the best hopes for the 
future, for all that was necessary for 
a very profitable export trade was 
direct communication with port and 
harbor towns on the coast, especially 
by railroad. The soil is very fertile and, 
with only slight care, produced 
bananas, corn, rice, all kinds of vege- 
tables, and fruit, including apples and 
grapes. It seemed evident that the 
raising of coffee and rubber could be- 
come profitable. The natives are ex- 
pert in the culture of tobacco. Minerals 
also are present—coal was discovered 
at several places. 

The Konde people belong to the 
Bantus—a race of negroes inhabiting 
the whole of central and south Africa. 
They are easy of approach. Gentle 
in disposition and given to hospital- 
ity, cheerful, peaceful, confiding and 
polite—such are they. Drunkenness, 


the common vice of most heathen, was 
not at all prominent and the govern- 
ment of the colony strictly forbade the 
importation of liquor. Just as import- 
ant is this rather unusual fact, that the 
status of woman was much higher than 
among most other negro people, even 
though she was not recognized as en- 
tirely the equal of man. 

They were by no means an ideal 
people; they were heathen and needed 
the Gospel of Christ. Vice abounded. 
Immorality was common, and_ still 
more common was superstition that 
permitted neither peace of mind nor 
happiness. It took the missionaries a 
long time to learn how many of the 
ordinary customs of life and of the 
habits of the race were rooted in their 
heathen religion. The oldest member 
ef each family is the priest of the fam- 
ily; there are also priests for the tribe 
and priests for the race. The sooth- 
Sayers and magicians are paid for their 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


105 





Building a Road in East Central Africa. 


services only when they are success- 
ful—that is unique. For that reason 
the natives took it amiss if the mis- 
sionaries made a charge for medical 
attendance even when the patient died! 
In general, however, the opposition of 
the pagan priests did not interfere 
nearly as much with the work of the 
mission as in other fields, for instance 
in Alaska and Nicaragua. And the na- 
tives’ receptivity and their capacity for 
culture greatly facilitated the white 
man’s task. 

After a few years the missionaries 


came into contact with several neigh- 
boring tribes, the Nika, Safwa and the 
Sango, who in language, customs and 
manner of life resemble the Konde, 
though there are differences. All of 
them support themselves mostly by 
agriculture and cattle-raising, carried 
on in arather primitive way. The mis- 
Sionaries and the government found 
them very capable laborers and by no 
means lacking in skill—in making the 
implements, for instance, requisite for 
the European manner of industry. 
Theodore Meyer, still living in well- 


106 


earned retirement (1926), was the lead- 
er of the first band of Moravian mis- 
sionaries who in 1891, after a terribly 
arduous journey, selected a spot in the 
foothills of the Rungwe Mountains, 
4200 feet high, with a healthful cli- 
mate, and called it Rungwe. The dens- 
er population, however, is found on 
the plains along the lake, and there- 
fore, three years later, the station 


Ipyana was begun,—but, because of 


WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


not take much interest in these things. 
Only gradually did they assist in the 
work—and thus the missionaries had 
their first opportunity of learning the 
language, the thoughts and the cus- 
toms of the natives. The natives, in 
turn, learned a valuable lesson in dil- 
igence and, above all, they learned 
to have confidence in the missionaries 
and from then on they were glad to 
learn from them. 





The Kilasi Waterfall near Rungwe, East Central Africa. 
Here is found some of the most luxurious tropical vegetation in all Africa. 


the fever-laden atmosphere, it could 
be maintained only at great expense of 
health and life. Seven more stations 
were founded in rapid succession: 
Rutenganio, Utengule, Isoko, Mbozi, 
Kyimbila, Hleya, and Mwaja. This in- 
cludes work in three more neighboring 
states: Unyka, Bulambya and Bundali. 
The erection of each station meant a 
great deal of hard work for the mis- 
sionaries—even manual labor. For 
they had to build their homes and 
churches by the labor of their own 
hands, because, at first, the natives did 


The people showed a disposition to 
build their own homes in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the stations and thus 
came under direct Christian influences. 
The inhabitants were by no means 
Christian, and yet were inclined to 
heed the teaching of their white 
friends. As soon as the latter had 
learned to speak the native tongue, 
even to a slight degree, they began to 
hold regular services for worship and 
for Christian instruction. They were 
delighted to learn that their hearers 
showed a receptive spirit towards the 


THE MISSION IN EAst CENTRAL AFRICA 


Gospel message. The first baptism at 
Rungwe took place in 1897 and after 
that the number of converts increased 
rapidly. 

Still more numerous were the people 
who crowded the schools. In 1912 
there were 92 schools, with between 


107 


influence to the main stations. Heath- 
en living at great distances felt the 
call to heed the message of the white 
men among them and asked for teach- 
ers. Open doors invited in all direc- 
tions. But how could a sufficient force 
of messengers be found in so short a 





The New Church at Rutenganio, E. Central Africa. 


four and five thousand pupils, in the 
care of 146 teachers. A grammar 
school was opened at Rungwe in 1910, 
for the benefit of the youths who had 
passed the primary grades. In a few 
years it had an enrollment of 35. 

It was not possible, it would not have 
been right, to confine the Christian 


time? There was no help for it—the 
more advanced Christian natives had 
to be used. There is a risk involved in 
allowing recent converts out of dark 
heathenism to become light-bearers to 
their pagan brethren. It had to be 
done here—and the authorities never 
regretted the step. For, in general, 


108 





TL Tat 


r yspacan agen ar Hire 


pasirerrecat i, uF rugged lnc 


Bij ari 
ii en EH 


WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


Christians of Rutenganio, E. Central Africa. 


First School at Rungwe, E. Central Africa. 


Pe ear ey 


a 





pataettrts 


i 





THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 109 





An African “wash-machine.” 


the native Christians proved them- tive evangelists were sent out alto- 
selves capable as helpers among the gether without preparation. As early 
heathen. Of course, none of the na- as 1903 a School for Native Helpers 





Native Water-carriers at Urambo, E. Central Africa. 


110 


WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The Substantial Brick Church at Utengule, E. Central Africa. 


and Evangelists was started at Rungwe, 
and at each station the missionaries 
gave courses of instruction to the men 
chosen to carry the Gospel to their own 
people. So it happened that in a short 
time each main station was the centre 
of whole chains of preaching places 
within a large radius, suovlied by evan- 


built the churches. 


gelists under direction of the mission- 
ary in charge of the station. There 
were 9 main stations, 50 out-stations 
and almost 1000 preaching places. At 
many places the natives themselves 
There were plenty 
of difficulties to be faced, of course. 
The health of the missionaries often 





The Worshipping Congregation at Utengule, E. Central Africa. 


THE MISSION IN East CENTRAL AFRICA 111 





The Station Mvenyane, E. Central Africa. 


broke down under the strain of the lects. The opposition of the Roman 
work in a hot climate. They had to Catholic mission had to be met, which 
work among people speaking four dia- refused to honor the agreements that 





Brother Kretschmer as Dentist in E. Central Africa. 


Lt WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 








| message won the hearts of multitudes 
m| in an immense stretch of territory. 
Then came the World War. As the 
missionaries were all Germans, they 
were all banished; the men were con- 
fined in camps in north-east Africa, 
their wives and children way in the 
south of the continent. In 1920 they 
were allowed to return to their native 
land, but forbidden again to take up 
their soul-saving work in Africa. 
With the war came influenza and pesti- 
lence and in May 1919 an earthquake 
practically destroyed whatever mission 
property was still in tact. The Scotch 
Livingstonia Mission sent a mission- 
ary couple to this territory in 1920, who 
found many faithful converts and 
evangelists of the Moravian Church. 
In 1925 the Moravian missionary Ge- 
museus returned to Nyasa, under the 
Scotch society’s control, and in 1926 
it is hoped to send a second Moravian 
The Tattooer at Work in E. Central Africa. Missionary to join him—-when this 
entire glorious missionary opportunity 
had been ‘made with reference to Will again De in the care of thesMora- 
spheres of influence. Polygamy is a vian Church. Almost all of the great 
very common custom. But it is im- ™Ssionary societies of Germany have 
possible in a Christian congregation. agreed to help the Moravian Church 
Hence it was impossible for some na- finance this mission for a five-year 
tives to unite with the Church. In Period. 
spite of all these things, the Gospel 





The School Grounds at Mvenyane, E. Central Africa. 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


113 


2.—THE UNYAMWESI MISSION 


The negro village of Urambo was 
very much excited on Sunday, January 
2, 1898—that was very evident. The 
shrill whistling of the black women and 
girls notified the neighboring villages 
that the expected caravan from Tabora 
was approaching. More than a thou- 
sand people led by the 18-year-old 
chief Katuga Moto marched out to meet 
the caravan. The warriors were swing- 
ing their war-clubs. The women and 
girls were waving flags of red, white 
and blue, fastened to the tips of long 
reeds. They were not on the war-path. 
They danced in the _ characteristic 
African fashion—so many steps for- 
ward, then a few backward, and for- 
ward again. It is their way of bidding 





welcome to a long-expected friend. 
The women howled their welcome and 
crowded so impetuously about the 
white women that they were almost 
thrown out of the hammocks in which 
they were carried. Then everybody 
shook hands and bade a cordial wel- 
come to the two Moravian missionary 
couples, Dahl and Meier. Nine weeks 
they had been on the road since they 
left Bagamoyo with a caravan of 200 
men—a hard journey, but it ended well. 
There was one white man in the re- 
ceiving party, Draper by name, repre- 
senting the London Missionary Society, 
whose duty it was officially to turn 
over their mission to the Moravian 
Church. 


A Village near Urambo, Unyamwesi. 


114 


WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





The Mission House in Urambo. 


Since 1879 the English society had 
been engaged here with almost total 
lack of success, and it now wished to 
concentrate its efforts in British East 
Africa. The Moravian authorities hesi- 
tated to shoulder the additional re- 
sponsibility. They had financial diffi- 
culties of their own. Yet they felt it 
was a call of duty. No other society 
seemed willing to undertake the task. 
It would provide a needed opportunity 
for the expansion of the successful 


Nyasa mission toward the north. If no 
Protestant mission. would have pro- 
secuted the work in this field, the 
Catholic Church, already active in 
Tabora, would certainly have claimed 
the whole district» for itself. The 
original cost of the Moravian work 
here was borne by a friend of missions 
in Germany—beyond that the church 
would have to raise the means for 
prosecuting a work that had to be- 
come a separate mission field from the 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


beginning. It was too far removed 
from other Moravian work in Africa 
to be directed from there. 

A year later, the third missionary 
and superintendent of the field, Stern, 
arrived at Urambo. With these three 
men, let us take a closer look at the 
land and its people. Unyamwesi had 
been assigned to them as their field 
for work, but they were soon led into 
several other districts southwards. 
They had before them an immense 
plateau or table-land, beginning at 


115 


tion, have greatly reduced the number 
of inhabitants. Nevertheless, it is 
estimated that more than 100,000 
negroes live in the district within the 
reach of this mission’s influence. They 
are members of a vigorous and talent- 
ed race, highly appreciated in the 
entire northern part of the country as 
workers and carriers—the Bantu-tribe, 
though other tribes, as the Vadusi, are 
found among them. All the tribes in 
the vast territory are closely related, 
yet they are by no means one people. 





A Sewing School in East Central Africa. 


Lake Victoria Nyanza and gradually 
increasing in elevation toward the 
south, crossed by a series of long eleva- 
tions, with numerous swamps between. 
Lying between the 4th and 7th degrees 
of southern latitude, the tropical heat 
is mitigated by its elevation. The 
swamps spoil the otherwise healthful 
climate. 

The population is very unevenly 
distributed. At some places it is dense- 
—then there are almost uninhabited 
steppes. War, famine, pestilence and, 
above all; the slave-trade of former 
years, especially in the southern por- 


Language and customs differ. It was 
fortunate for the missionaries that the 
variations in dialect are comparative- 
ly unimportant, and that the Kinyam- 
wesi-Kilugaluga has become the do- 
minant language, understood almost 
everywhere. Next in importance is 
the Swaheli dialect, with which the 
missionaries were already familiar. 
Only after years of hard language- 
study could the missionaries under- 
stand the religious ideas and customs 
of the natives. The Wanyamwesi 
people decorate themselves profusely 
with amulettes. On the upper arms 


116 


they tie two little blocks of wood— 
to protect them while taking a walk. 
The “lupingu” is suspended from the 
neck on a chain of pearls. In this 
three-cornered or long white shell the 
“mizimu” live, that is, the spirits of 
the dead. The Wanyamwesi know 
positively that every least life exper- 
ience is controlled by these spirits— 
birth, life, health, fortune, death— 
hence they worship them. They build 
a little hut for the spirits very close to 
their houses, and there they worship 


WoRrRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


importance in their superstitious wor- 
ship of spirits. He acts as a repre- 
sentative for his people. They have 
some special superstition for every 
event of life: the birth of a child, par- 
ticularly of twins, marriage, etc. Very 
soon after a wedding, the tail of a 
goat is fastened to the door of the 
newly-wedded couple’s hut—the best 
lightning deflector that has ever been 
discovered. Crocodiles’ eggs are treat- 
ed with great respect; to destroy or 
remove them brings great harm to the 





Court-yard of the Unyamwesi Village, Kigoda. 


their sacrifices on 
special occasions, aS upon recovery 
from illness, goat-meat, or “walwa”’ 
that is, beer, or corn or a thin batter 
of flour and water. They have a 
festival that corresponds closely to a 
Harvest Home service. Witch doctors 
are important people. One came to 
Urambo to peddle strange kinds of 
objects that had magic power, which 
he carried about in a box made of bark, 
such as roasted hearts of beasts of 
prey, bills of birds and horns filled 
with poison. 

The chief also has a place of special 


them and offer 


country. Yes, there was much black 
heathenism among these people, and 
terrible fear in their hearts. They 
needed a Saviour to free them from 
fear, to purify their souls and to sanc- 
tify their lives. 

So the condition of things was not at 
all favorable for missionary success. 
The negroes had an exaggerated notion 
of their national strength—united as 
they were into a powerful tribe under 
the rule of the great chief Mirambo. 
The land was wealthy, the people were 
economically as fortunate as heathen 
seldom are. Spiritual longing appar- 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


ently there was none. There seemed 
to be neither need nor desire for the 
Gospel. Germany forced Mirambo to 
abdicate in favor of his son. That 
resulted in the breaking up of the 
native empire—and political restless- 
ness ruled the land. As the mission- 
aries came from the same country as 
the European masters, the Wanyam- 
wesi only very reluctantly learned to 
have complete confidence in them. The 
first welcome Seemed to prophesy a 
glorious triumph, but only the most 


t 





Die 


training. That, of course, was not an 
easy task. As soon as possible the 
Moravians re-established the schools 
that had been begun by the London 
mission. As soon as their knowledge 
of the language permitted it, daily 
public devotions and Sunday preaching 
services were regularly held. 
Urambo (Kilimani) did not long re- 
main the only station. The workers 
came with the plan of using this as 
the starting point for the development 
of a mission-province to include the 





Watusi Negro Children, Unyamwesi. 


patient and almost painful fidelity could 
bring any success, and then only after 
grievous disappointments. 

Ways were at last found to reach the 
heathen; at first they were neither 
Spiritual nor mental. The manual 
labor involved in erecting the neces- 
sary station-buildings brought mission- 
aries and natives into touch. The sick 
and suffering crowded around the 
medical missionary, Meier, for help in 
their physical distress. The govern- 
ment entrusted to the mission quite a 
number of released slave-children for 


whole interior section of German East 
Africa. There was to be a chain of 
Stations beginning at Urambo in the 
north all the way to Rungwe in the 
south—the latter being the most north- 
ern station of the Nyasa mission. This 
is a distance of over 400 miles—and at 
that time there were no railroads, no 
water transportation and not even 
roads. 

Kitunda was the next station (1901), 
in the Kiwere country, about the mid- 
dle of the projected chain. Very soon 
afterwards Catholic priests also ar- 


118 


rived here. The government fortunately 
put a stop to their competition and 
opposition. But it showed the workers 
that they must exert themselves to the 
utmost actually to serve the district 
assigned to them. Missionaries were 
sent out almost every year, and in 
rapid succession there arose stations 
at Sikonge (1902) among the Ngulu, 
then, not far away, Ipole (1903) in 
Ugunda, Kipembabwe (1904), only five 
days’ journey from Rungwe, Usoke in 


WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


fered eight separate’ attacks of fever 
in three months. 

Wild beasts have always been a 
real plague here. Lions and leopards 
not only prey at night upon their cattle 
—the life of human beings is often 
endangered. Missionary Brauer made 
an heroic effort to rid Ipole of the 
pest after several natives had been 
torn to pieces—and almost lost his life. 
He trailed a lion whom he had wound- 
ed with a shot. The beast turned on 





School Picnic at Sikonge, Unyamwesi. 


1907, near Tabora, and finally (1912) 
the new station in Tabora itself. To 
the present day the journeys between 
these stations are a real hardship; they 
consume a great deal of time, are very 
expensive, and hard on the workers’ 
health. 

A more serious interference with the 
mission work is found in the persistent 
tropical sickness to which the mission- 
aries are exposed, and especially the 
missionaries’ wives; after only a short 
service they are frequently broken in 
health. A certain missionary once suf- 


him, injured him very seriously and 
would certainly have killed him, if his 
native companions had not rescued him. 
In one year the government paid 
20,963 rupees as premiums for 487 
dead lions and 1412 dead leopards. 
Here is an extract of a letter written 
at Sikonge in 1925: 

“Last Monday one of our boys killed 
a large puff-adder just behind our 
house. It was about three feet long 
and as big around, as one’s arm—a hor- 
rible brute! It had just had a meal 
off a big rat, which it vomited up after 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 


being struck. Then yesterday the hos- 
pital boy killed a long green tree- 
snake just outside the hospital. On 
Thursday, Mr. Ibsen wrote that they 
had heard a lion roaring just outside 
their house (at Ipole), about five yards 
from their veranda, the lioness and 
cubs being farther down in the village. 
On Friday we heard them roaring only 
a mile or so from us. They were seen 
over our way on Friday night, and had 
caught and eaten three wild pigs; so 
they were not hungry.” 


‘in Herrnhut. 


119 


write a dictionary. The British and 
Foreign Bible Society printed the 
Gospel of Matthew in 1906 and in the 
same year the entire New Testament 
in the Kinyamwesi dialect was printed 
Both of the latter are the 
work of Superintendent Stern. These 
men also have other literary works to 


their credit—a grammar, a hymn book, 


Old and New Testament stories, a sec- 
ond primer, a catechism, etc. 

All this laid a good foundation for 
preaching the Gospel, to which the 





Christmas Decorations at Kitunda, Unyamwesi. 


Three of these stations suffered 
great conflagrations. In 1907 lightning 
set on fire the large, old building of the 
Kitunda station. It burned to the 
ground. In 1909 the entire Ipole mis- 
sion was burned and in 1912 a con- 
siderable part of Sikonge. 

In spite of all difficulties, the mes- 
sengers of the Gospel worked persist- 
ently and hopefully. They thoroughly 
studied the language of these people— 
here also they were pioneers. Mis- 
sionary Dahl finished the first primer 
in 1903 and immediately began to 


workers now turned with greater zeal. 
It took a long time for the natives to 
comprehend the real purpose of the 
white teachers and to feel their need 
of the Gospel of Christ. Nor is that 
to be wondered at. Only after a parti- 
cularly hard moral battle could a heath- 
en Wanyamwesi free himself from the 
inherited slavery of spirit-worship, 
magic, immorality and drunkenness. 
The degraded condition of woman, and 
consequently of family life, also is a 
serious hindrance even to the present 
time. 


Child-life in East Africa. 


At last, at Easter, 1903, the first- 
fruits of the mission could be harvest- 
ed. Those were happy days, not at the 
oldest station, but at Kitunda. It was 
the thirty-year-old Kipamila and his 
wife Kitambi. Very early on Easter 
day they came to the mission house 
to spend an hour in quiet preparation. 
At ten o’clock the bell rang and the 
missionaries led the candidates into 
church and placed them on naiive 
chairs opposite the preacher. To the 
right and left of them sat fourteen who 
were receiving instruction. After a 
sermon, the two converts made a public 
confession of their faith in Jesus as 
their Saviour, firmly, joyfully and with 
evident conviction. Then followed a 
prayer and Superintendent Stern with 
evident emotion baptized John and 
Mary (their Christian names) into the 
death of Jesus, in the name of the 
Triune God. The three missionary 
couples acted as sponsors and, with 
their hands held over the heads of the 
converts, the superintendent  pro- 
nounced the Old Testament benediction 
over them. The people followed the 
ceremony with great interest, quietly 
and reverently. John is Mary’s fourth 





WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


husband. Both of them have given 
proof that their faith has saved them 
and made them happy. The first bap- 
tismal service made a deep impression 
on the congregation. On Easter Mon- 
day two particularly wicked natives, 
who had spent some time about the 
place as workers, asked to be enrolled 
as candidates for instruction. One of 
them said to the preacher: “Bwana, 
you have often asked us to ocme to 
Jesus. Now He is becoming too strong 
for me. I dare resist no longer; I will 
now accept Jesus.” 


Four sterile years passed after that 
great day. Then, however, the glad 
news came from this and that station 
of the baptism of firstlings. On Trin- 
ity Sunday, 1907, 28 years after the 
English missionaries began to preach 
at Urambo, the first converts were bap- 
tized at this first station. At the end 
of 1912, the baptized converts totalled 
150, and 329 candidates for baptism 
vere receiving instruction from 14 
missionaries, who had charge of 7 
main stations, 8 out-stations and 110 
preaching places. 

The number of converts and work- 
ers was small, but the aim of the mis- 
sion was not small. The missionaries 
had nothing less in view than the 
Christianization of the masses of men 
in their populous districts by the sure 
method of evangelization. They 
knew that they had to depend upon the 
assistance of the native converts for a 
good share of this work. They had 
faith enough and courage enough to 
trust the natives to assist them in 
preaching the Gospel. On their evan- 
gelistic journeys they were almost al- 
ways accompanied and assisted by the 
more advanced and more experienced 
of the natives. Many of them proved 
themselves apt pupils and were ad- 
vanced to evangelists in charge of 
preaching places. In 1909, Superin- 
tendent Loebner gathered 15 such 
helpers in Sikonge for an extended 
course of study in evangelism. 

The work of the schools is keeping 
pace with evangelism. There are 16 


THE MISSION IN EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 121 


schools at the stations and 10 at out- 
Stations, the latter in the care of native 
assistants. Even at the main stations, 
more advanced and specially gifted 
pupils assist the missionaries and their 
wives in caring for the schools. There 
were, in 1912, thirty-five such native 
teachers, and 1062 pupils. In Kitunda 
and Urambo, the brightest pupils were 
formed into a select class and some 
cf them were trained in a special home. 
Most careful attention was given to the 
education and training of children as 
a very important part of missionary 
activity. Competition with Catholicism 
and Islam will probably have to be 
met first of all in the field of educa- 
tion. The government laid great stress 
on education. Plans were under dis- 
cussion for a higher grade school in 
which native assistants could receive 
a thorough furnishing for their work. 
Plenty of qualified young people were 
available. 

One other great undertaking must 
be reported. Tabora is a city of 37,000 
inhabitants, and the chief citadel of 
Mohammedanism in the interior of 


Africa. Should not the Moravian 
Church preach the doctrine of the 
Cross in the very home of the Crescent 
in Africa? Islam was making aston- 
ishing progress and threatened to ex- 
clude the Christian messengers from 
large areas of the interior. Not on 
the coast, but in the interior the de- 
cisive battle between Christianity and 
Mohammedanism in Africa will have 
to be fought to a finish. Ever since 
1910, the Moravian missionaries had 
come into contact with Mohammedans 
through their Gospel work among the 
workers who were building the rail- 
road through the central part of this 
country. The railroad was completed 
as far as Tabora in 1912 and in that 
year Moravian work was definitely es- 
tablished there. 

Great expectations encouraged and 
thrilled the hearts of the heralds of 
the Cross. Eagerly they had entered 
the conflict with heathenism and Mo- 
hammedanism ; a thorough-going 
change in the life of the natives was 
impending—would not that help the 
mission cause considerably? The build- 














An African Sorcerer and His Tools. 


V2 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Converts at Sikonge Training for Christian Work. 


ing of the railroad as far as Tabora sud- 
denly made this hitherto lost land one 
of the trade routes of the world. Modern 
life and culture came into direct con- 
tact with the patriarchal forms of negro 
people. The economic and the social 
life of the pagan population, and even 
their ethnic religion, was being shaken 
in its very roots. The old was passing. 
Something different, something new 
was bound to come. What an oppor- 
tunity to leaven the life of a people 
with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! A 
sure foundation had to be laid for a 
new and better national life. It is self- 
evident that without the aid of the mis- 
sion as representing Christianity, no 
future full of blessing for the people 
could be anticipated. How eagerly the 


mission worked to accomplish _ that 
happy purpose! 
Then came the World War. It came, 


sad to say, even into that land in Africa 
so far removed from the original scene 
of the cause of war. The helpless 
missionaries of Jesus, who like their 
Master do not fight, were dragged from 


their stations, first to imprisonment in 
Tabora, then through the Kongo to 
France. Finally, in 1919, they were 
allowed to return to Germany but they 
were forbidden to return to the work 
for immortal souls in Africa. Two of 
the missionaries, one a Dane and the 
other an Alsatian (Moravian missions 
are an international undertaking) were 
permitted to live at Tabora, but were 
not allowed to preach to the natives. 
But the native converts, insofar as the 
war did not disperse them, continued 
their congregational life and kept up 
the services. When Danish Moravians 
were again permitted to resume the 
work here, they found these faithful 
natives and soon all the old places 
were again occupied; the main stations 
by Danish missionaries, and Kitunda, 
Tabora and Urambo by native helpers. 
There is also one English medical mis- 
sionary at work. The total number of 
converts now has passed seven hun- 
dred and the workers joyfully report 
constant conversions and steady de- 
velopment of the mission. 


CHAPTER X 
ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 


GAIN and again during the gols’in Russian Asia—but without 

years 1764-1822, Moravian mis- avail. God had not yet opened the 

sionaries attempted to carry the doors. The Russian government for- 
Good News of salvation to the Mon- bade it. 


i 
) i Ih 





Our Station Kyelang, Tibet. 


124 


Missionary circles in various parts 
of the world long have been eager to 
preach Christ among the Tibetan peo- 
ple, on the “Roof of the World.” The 
Moravian church also has been stand- 
ing for more than 70 years before the 
fast-closed door of this hermit king- 
dom, “watching and waiting for Tibet.” 
But originally they wanted to go into 


Tibet, not wait on the border. God 
moves in a mysterious way. 
The famous Chinese missionary, 


Guetzlaff, served the interest of the 
Moravians in their ancient effort to- 
wards Mongolia. Two volunteers were 
called for; thirty responded. On Nov. 


WorRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


Lahoul, among a people who were 
Mongols not Tibetans, though they 
speak the Tibetan language. 

A third worker soon joined them in 
the person of August Jaeschke, a very 
learned man, whose phenomenal lin- 
guistic gift was to be of inestimable 
value to his brethren. Try to visualize 
where) these brethren’) Wivedss Phen 
house is 10,000 feet above sea-level, 
built on a steep grade, from which 
you can look down into a narrow valley, 
at the bottom of which flows the river 
Bagha. 1500 feet higher up the moun- 
tain you see a monastery of Lamas, 
(Buddhist priests) built against the 


= x Soy Pg 
wee ioe, Ae Ae my 
92 ed eae “fo 4 
fy, ae, Cie ae nes; Gees es PE OLA “ 
Ne 2s % oe fy) 2 yee Ope. Keene “i * Mose PA: cae ear oy aE 
a oS ae LS Te n ay ‘ : 
rigs if Ne a Sonat SAS Pies |e mae i Ges Me te pe ee” it 
‘4 y 4 poten, Sua} ae { Z 
“nang, vkalatse “ZZ LO eo a # 
ae masta : % =~ i,” # khe amuer % : 
wa Ad > See Pf (SSE ame ark, B z. ‘; 
CD Chat Sihrelang errr? BEY Sores a ae 
( 2 
aAahary Oo Ro) ae = Setat Qreas, rele eden g Wealern nad ‘ 
> c . 
S Sint at ONG Se bef ae == ff ie 109 oe) ™ : 
Bak: ie eae ES : 
sy AS ps se : ‘my Copla Scale. “Soms tet ch a 
oh Whe Syl of 
yaa 120 211,24 : ; 
2 ip N c ~dassa ‘ 
sy Oy ~ 27, Qryangt ce & f 
; YN 1 Wisi4 Mt Eve + Vas -* i 
hs Sj hg yr tagler pent Fz ‘ 2 : 
5 Se Q 2 : ~ oy J yet et we oe ter Ate ao «..' 
Ap . “ 
ndiw ®e - art ‘ Dho 


Co 
--- 
<- -~c%eee- 
ed 


“sree 


A Map of Our Tibetan Mission Field. 


23, 1853 the two missionaries Edward 
Pagell and August W. Heyde reached 
Calcutta safely, with orders to press 
forward to the Tartars of Chinese 
Tibet. They had been refused the 
nearer route through Russia. So they 
journeyed via Simla, in the highest 
inhabited land on earth, towards the 
western confines of Tibet, which they 
reached in 1854. The next year they 
attempted to enter Chinese Mongolia 
—but the vigilance of the government 
rendered every attempt futile. So 
they tried to settle at Leh, the capital 
of Ladak, a province of Kashmir. No 
Strangers were allowed to live in Ladak 
—they were ordered away. Finally, 
in 1856, they chose as their home the 
town of Kyelang, in the Province of 


walls of the precipice almost like a 
swallow’s nest. Between these highest 
snow-covered peaks on earth there are 
deep, narrow valleys and glorious 
Slopes, some of which look bare be- 
cause of the absence of trees; danger- 
ous bridle-paths lead over passes filled 
with snow and ice into neighboring but 
invisible valleys. The climate is not un- 
healthy; the winters are very cold and 
the summers very hot. The rarity of the 
atmosphere, owing to the great eleva- 
tion, often has a deleterious effect on 
the respiration, the circulation and the 
nerves of Europeans. The natives 
make pitiful attempts at agriculture, 
cattle-raising and the culture of fruit, 
especially apricots. The natives show 
a bitter intolerance towards every re- 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 


ligion other than their own. Immoral- 
ity, drunkenness and polyandry are 
very common. 

The missionaries soon learned that 
the villagers were not.only very re- 
served but actually antagonistic, but 
they hoped by patient friendliness to 
win their confidence. They had to 
work hard in building their station and 
in learning the language, through 
which only it was possible to under- 
Stand the thought and the life of the 
natives. The Scriptures were translat- 
ed into Tibetan and circulated among 
its people and sent over the border 
into Chinese Tibet. Fortunately these 
people had a literature and reading 
was by no means a lost part. Thus 
many people read the Gospel. Preach- 
ing was not the most important method 
of work here, because the population 
is very sparse in the valleys hidden 
among the mighty mountains, and 
journeys to the distant villages were 
not only time-consuming and difficult, 
but positively dangerous. 

Nevertheless, as soon as possible, 
the missionaries attempted to reach the 


125 





¥ 
Aug. W. Heyde 
A Pioneer in our Tibet Mission. 
He spent 50 years in it. 


hearts of the pagans by regular public 
services and by teaching school. The 
missionaries’ wives taught the women 
and girls how to sew and knit, but they 
were less approachable than the men. 
The women in their simplicity would 
say to the white teachers: “We are as 
Stupid as oxen.” The dawn was long 





Poo, on the Border of Tibet 


126 


delayed. The first baptism was admin- 
istered in 1865, to Sodnom Stobkyes 
and his son Joldan; but this delay 
must not be ascribed to the stupidity 
of the Tibetans, for actually they are 
a gifted people and decidedly capable 
of culture. 

Lamaism, a degenerate form of 
Buddhism, has complete control of the 
Tibetans and it seemed impossible for 
Christianity to make the slightest 
headway against it. The practical 
aspect of Lamaism in daily life is a 





WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


terrible fear of evil spirits and the 
constant effort to ward off their harm- 
ful influence by the endless repetition 
of prayers and magic phrases. 

The most common Buddhistic pray- 
er reads: “Om mani padme hum.” 
Literally translated it means: “O jewel 
in the lotus flower.” But not even a 
Tibetan lama can give an intelligent 
Statement of the real meaning of the 
prayer. Neither does it make any 
difference to the Tibetans whether or 
not they know the meaning of their 


4 Buddhist School with a Chorten in the Background. 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 


127 





The Bazaar in Simla, Kashmir. 


prayer. They understand that the 
more often they repeat these six syl- 
lables the better it is for them—indeed 
they do not even need to be repeated. 
If only they are kept in motion by 


means of a prayer wheel rotated by 
hand, or driven by a waterwheel, or 
the waving of a prayer flag. They 
write it as often as they can on stones, 
or walls, etc—for the greater virtue 





The Usual Mode of Travel in Tibet. 


128 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





A Camp in the Himalaya Mountains. 





A Group of Christians at Poo. 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 


of the writer. The greatest power is 
exercised by these prayer-words if they 
are pronounced by a lama. Thus the 
lamas are indispensable in the exor- 
cism of demons; and here is the source 
of the almost unthinkable power of the 
priests and monks over the people. The 
smallest detail of daily life is con- 
trolled by the priests, and the common 


129 


of course, also other reasons, why 
the power of the Gospel has not been 
strikingly demonstrated here. 

A second station was begun at Poo, 
in 1865. This village is only two days’ 
journey distant from the border of 
Tibetan China. It is inhabited by 600 
poverty-stricken Tibetan Buddhists. 
There is a cloister here housing 40 





The Mission Hospital at Poo. 


Builtpuin L913: 


people must pay dearly for their ad- 
vice, and especially for important 
undertakings, such as journeys, house- 
building, beginning of gardening or 
harvesting, and also in case of sick- 
ness. The lamas know very well that 
the true faith entirely destroys their 
power over the Christian, and they 
threaten dire distress upon any one 
who shows even a slight interest in the 
doctrine of the missionaries. While 
this was the main reason, there were, 


Over 3000 patients are treated here in one year. 


monks and a nunnery with the same 
number of nuns. The _ missionary 
(Pagell) and his wife were not wel- 
comed there. Several very fortunate 
cases of cure of sickness and success- 
ful operations gave him a good reputa- 
tion as a physician and as friend of 
the people. 

Over forty years had passed since 
the beginning of the missionary effort 
and still conversions and _ baptisms 
were extremely rare. In Poo the situa- 


130 





Lamas. 


tion seemed hopeless. Eighteen long 
years had the seed of the Word been 
sown here, and yet there was no har- 
vest. At last, in 1897, the times of 
refreshing came and Easter Sunday of 
that year still is marked as a great day. 
For on that day 14 adults and 5 chil- 
dren were baptized into the death of 
Jesus—a larger number than on any 
previous occasion in the history of this 
mission. 

A testing time has since come upon 
this station and there has been a de- 
crease in membership. The influence 
of the congregation upon the commun- 
ity was lessened by the fact that the 
converts practically all belonged to 
the lowest caste. And yet it was a 
matter of great regret that Poo had to 
be given up, in the summer of 1924. 

Leh presents an entirely different 
picture from Kyelang and Poo. It isa 
great mart, where annually great cara- 
vans from various parts of inner Asia 
meet to exchange their goods with trad- 
ers from Kashmir and India. It is the 


WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


capital of Ladak, with a population of 
3000. Not till 1885 did the mission- 
aries receive the longed-for permission 
to begin their work here-—and even 
then they were merely tolerated. But 
a splendid opportunity was given for 
the medical missionary——-one of the 
most important methods of work even 
to the present day among these Asiatic 
people. Dr. Marx took charge of the 
hospital at Leh in 1887 and soon made 
his influence felt far and wide. Just as 


.the prospects of the work were so 


bright—disaster came; both of the 
gifted and indispensable missionaries, 
Marx and Redslob, died in the prime 
Orette: 

Again and again the work here suf- 
fered greatly from the ill-health of the 
missionaries. Leh’s elevation is 1I1,- 
400 feet—it is the highest mission 
station in the world—and the air is very 
rare. It is exceedingly dangerous for 
children. There are very few, if any, 
mission fields where there are found 
as many graves of children in propor- 
tion to the population as here. 





Our Station Poo in Winter. 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 131 





Masked Buddhist Priests Ready for the Dance to Scare Away Devils. 


The women presented a special diffi- 
culty. As everywhere in India, the 
missionaries could not do much in the 
way of Christian effort for women, be- 
cause the women spend their lives al- 
most entirely in the zenana, from which 


men are excluded. The missionaries’ 
wives had tried to do what they could, 
but it was recognized that more must 
be done. Since 189! a number of 
single, lady missionaries have been de- 
voting themselves to this work 





A Tea Party at Leh. 
The hot tea has a lot of strong, old butter stirred into it. 


132 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Bro. H. B. Marx Treating the Sick. 
His tent and the whole group are on the roof of a house. 


ON THE BorDERS OF TIBET 133 


Conference at Kyelang. 


ission 


Bishop La Trobe at a M 





134 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





A Native Tibetan Couple in Mourning. 


exclusively, and in general have been 
doing good work, even though no start- 
ling results can be reported. 

Another station was begun a few 


days’ journey from Leh, at Kalatse, 
on the Indus River. But the numerical 
result is small. Less than 200 souls 
are members of the four stations of 





The Sewing School at Leh. 


ON THE BORDERS OF TIBET 135 





An Outdoor Gymnasium for Tibetan School Boys. 


this mission. Seventeen missionaries mission even in Central Asia. The 
of both sexes were at work here when superintendent was Swiss by national- 
the war came. It interfered with the ity and was not molested. The three 





An Avalanche Blocking the Road. 


136 


German couples were interned and 
later re-patriated, but not permitted 
to return to their post of duty after the 
war. 

Fortunately, among the small num- 
ber of converts there are some who 
have proved themselves good teachers, 
evangelists and helpers. In 1920 two 
of them became ordained ministers— 
the very first of their race. It is hoped 
that such native forces may in the fu- 
ture be able to carry the Gospel across 
the Tibetan boundary; until now Eu- 
ropean missionaries have been refused 
permission to do so. 

And is this all that can be shown 
for over 70 years of effort, of great 
sacrifice of money, of the sacrifice even 
of very precious lives? The converts 
are few. But every soul is precious 
in the sight of God. Everything that is 
done in compliance with the Master’s 
Great Commission is worth while. He 
is Lord of the harvest. And at any 
rate, the good accomplished is much 


WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


greater than the few converts would 
lead one to think. To mention but 
one thing—the missionaries engaged 
in energetic literary activity. They 
have studied the language, history and 
religion of the Tibetans and especially 
have circulated the Tibetan version of 
the Bible. Easily the greatest of these 
literary workers is the highly gifted A. 
H. Francke, a worthy successor of 
Jaeschke. The distribution of the 
Bible reaches a great many more 
people than the preaching of the 
Gospel. Indeed, it is just this kind 
of seed-sowing which may assure an 
abundant harvest of souls some time 
in the future. At any rate, despair 
with reference to the Kingdom of God 
is mever justified. The honored 
“Father” Heyde, who labored incess- 
antly for 50 years in this stoniest of 
all mission fields with but little im- 
mediate result, never doubted that 
God in His own good time would call 
His Tibetan people into His Kingdom, 





Dr. Sven Hedin, the Famous Explorer, (right) at Leh, 1902. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE MISSIONS IN AUSTRALIA 
A—VICTORIA 


N 1835 only 14 white people and 
TI about 15,000 Papuan natives in- 
habited the almost three million 
square miles of land in Australia. In 
1907, there were left 624 Papuans and 


mal skin about him. They had no 
houses; they lived under a roof of 
boughs or bark. They live on what 
nature provides and as nature provides 
it, the raw meat of game, kangaroo, 


g Thussiwy Ts 
pe Ore Wy CullenReag 
f ¢ x cee A POON) Mecha 
“v Pas Gulf of bus “ae 
Peal Oe te 
\ vp Lee aN kTown 
/ : on ) 
f ; Dee ge 
GS ALAS) FEMA ZN TE ASS i 
\ Wie Sill , SOUTH | QUEENSLAND = 
\, AUSTRALIA | AUSTRALIA > “r+ Bra skates 
\ 4 9 Kopperamana ie ate. Vie) a 
| ‘new Sorta ¢ 
Firth Da eNO oh ape 
Z 4 Sidney 
wT 
CJ 
Ga 





ne dy_F Ramayeck, 


Our Former Stations in Australia. ; 


217 mixed breeds. In 1923, the popu- 
lation was about five and one half mil- 
lion, mostly English. There are also 
Germans and Chinese. The aboriginal 
Papuans were a particularly degener- 
ate race. They are usually called 
“Blackfellows.” Their physical ap- 
pearance is the opposite of attractive. 
The color of their skin, either dark or 
light brown, the black stringy hair, only 
occasionally curled, a shapeless mouth 
with very thick lips, a broad, flat nose, 
high cheek-bones: these produce a gen- 
eral contour of the body which is very 
peculiar. They wore no clothing, but 
now and then a person throws an ani- 


dog or oppossum, which they hunt 
with a spear, as well as worms, grubs, 
lizards, snakes, rats, roots and _ fish. 
They did not have a single cooking 
utensil. Certain scientists asserted 
that they were the much sought after 
“missing link’? between man and the 
monkey; such, however, is not the case. 
But they were the most degraded 
heathen people to be found on the face 
of the earth—dirty, superstitious, sus- 
picious, thieving and cannibalistic. 
Divided into small tribal groups, 
they wandered through the country 
without settled place of abode and 
with no regular work to earn their liv- 


138 





Charlie Motton, a Blackfellow. 
Weipa, N. Queensland. 


ing. Their manner of life was more 
like the animals than like human be- 
ings. The lot of the women was par- 
ticularly desperate. They were nothing 
but slaves of their husbands. They 
did whatever work had to be done. On 
account of the treatment to which they 
had been subjected, they were more 
stupid and apathetic than the men to- 
wards the efforts of the missionaries. 
And things surely appeared hopeless 
enough so far as the men were con- 
cerned. Weak children were killed. 

Two well developed arts these men, 
however, had: one necessary for life 
on the water and the other just as es- 
Séntial gforenieonmtneesteppceam ley 
were wonderful swimmers and divers, 
which made them acceptable assistants 
to the pearl fishers, and they had an 
almost uncanny ability to follow a trail. 
All other faculties apparently were 
dormant, until called into life by the 
missionaries. Even then their mental 
abilities never became great. 

There seemed to be little virility in 
the entire race. The tribe is rapidly 


WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


dying out, especially in Victoria, the 
scene of the first Moravian effort. The 
commonest cause of death is tuber- 
culosis. In the genuinely tropical cli- 
mate of North Queensland all the 
tropical diseases abound and tropical 
fever is a common cause of death. 

The missionaries found but few 
traces of a native religion. It is, how- 
ever, now proved incorrect, aS was 
once held, that they were a people who 
had no religion at all. A gigantic old 
man, asleep for ages, with his head 
resting upon an arm deeply imbedded 
in the sand, who will some day become 
awake and eat up the world—that is 
their concept of God. They do have 
ideas about transmigration of souls, 
about the influence of the stars, of the 
existence of spirits and their influence 
over nature and men. Especially must 
be mentioned rather elaborate cere- 
monies for the burial of the dead. 
There are rain makers among them. 
Their confidence in the power of magic 
is strong, and often leads to unfortu- 
nate consequences. 

Certain it is, from what has just 
been said, that the spiritual life of 
these natives is of the lowest possible 
sort—it corresponds exactly with the 
low order of the social, family and 
personal life. Physical and mental 
weakness seems to characterize them 
all. And yet their practical annihila- 
tion would not have occurred as rapid- 
ly as it did, if the white settlers had 
pursued a different policy towards 
them. Their policy was that the only 
good blackfellow was a dead one. 
They deliberately set out to extermin- 
ate them. They drove them out of 
their native habitat; they hunted them 
like wild beasts. There are scarcely 
any of them left, whereas the white 
population mumbers' miilions. The 
whites did not have a justification for 
their action in any possible danger to 
themselves from the _ blackfellows. 
They were harmless. 

It is of course, true, that there was 
nothing attractive about these natives. 
Some of their customs were beastly 


THE MISSIONS IN AUSTRALIA 


139 





The Late Rev. F. A. Hagenauer and wife. 
Missionary in Australia for fifty years. 


rather than human. They had the re- 
putation of being cannibals and that 
they were particularly fond of white 
people.» It seems to be .a fact’ that 
traces of cannibalism occur even at the 
present time. This is perhaps the rea- 
son why the whites could think only 
with repugnance of the natives; they 
forgot that the grace of God is suffi- 
cient to save even such degraded souls. 

God sent the message of His love 


in Christ even to these people. Both 
in the north and in the south of this 
continent the Moravian Church preach- 
ed the Gospel to them. Several mis- 
sionaries were sent to Victoria in 1849. 
After a number of vain efforts, 1849- 
1856, they succeeded in persuading 
some of these nomads to settle down 
at two stations, Ebenezer, in 1859 and 
Ramahyuk, 1861. And behold! Gra- 
dually these degraded pagans learned 





A Blackfellow’s Humpy Made of Bark. 


140 





Native Camp in Victoria. 
Sheets of bark supported by stakes 


to live a well-ordered, decent life, and 
finally they accepted Jesus as Saviour 
and Master. The first convert, Pepper 
—Nathanael, was baptized in 1860. 
The Christian natives gave up their 
nomadic habits, settled down at the 
Stations and earned their living by 
gardening, agriculture and cattle-rais- 
ing. Their children showed just as 
much ability to learn as the children 
of the white settlers. Their confidence 
in the missionaries was beautiful to 
behold and under their care and leader- 


WorLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


ship they lived a happy and a truly 
Christian life. The nestor of this mis- 
sion is Frederick A. Hagenauer, who 
spent 50 years among these people. 
Like a real patriarch he lived among 
his parishioners, respected not only 
by the converts but by the heathen, 
and was the confidential adviser of the 
government in matters pertaining to 
the natives; no one knew as much 
about them as he. 

With the retirement of Hagenauer 
comes also the close of the mission in 
Victoria. There never was hope of an 
extensive and numerical success. As 
a matter of fact, the tribes among 
which the Moravians were active had 
constantly decreased; the very few re- 
presentatives were not able to continue 
even so primitive a form of tribal or- 
ganization; they gave up trying and 
were merged into the related tribes. 
To protect the natives against the 
whites, the government had created 
six “reserves” for them, five of which 
were mission-stations and two of these 
Moravian, and a government grant in 
money was given for their support, 





Ebenezer, Australia. 


THE MISSIONS IN AUSTRALIA 141 





N. Queensland Blackfellows Armed with Doublepointed Womeras. 


in the year 1900 about $20,000 for all 
the natives in Victoria. But one re- 
servation after another had to be closed 
for lack of inhabitants, Ebenezer 





in 1903 and Ramahyuk in 1907. Mora- 
vian efforts ceased, but one great thing 
had been accomplished; indisputable 
evidence was at hand that the Gospel 








Papuan Pearl-fishermen in an Outrigger Canoe. 


142 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Natives of N. Queensland. 


of Jesus has power to lift a most de- and decent living, and to save their 
generate people out of their ignorance souls for time and eternity. 
and vice into a state of intelligence 





The Mission Church and School at Mapoon. 


THE MISSIONS IN AUSTRALIA 


143 


B—NORTH QUEENSLAND 


This experience was repeated in the 
north of Australia. The General As- 
sembly of the Federated Presbyterian 
Church of Australia asked the Mora- 
vian Church to supply missionaries at 
their expense, for the purpose of evan- 
gelizing the savages in North Queens- 
land. This is an immense territory, in- 
habited by a large population of Eng- 
lish and Germans, thousands of Chi- 
nese and “Kanakas” i.e. Melanesian 
and Polynesian laborers, besides Jap- 
anese, Malays and Singalese. The 
Papuan population is estimated at from 
twenty-five to thirty thousand. They 
differ considerably from their Victor- 
ian relatives. Physically they are 
much healthier and hardier; they are 
also wilder warriors and more mur- 
derous. The climate is hot, the soil 
more fertile, and there is more water 
than in the other Australian states. 
Prospects for the development of 
agriculture and mining are very good. 
All tropical fruits are raised, corn, 
Sugar-cane and grapes. 





Native Boys of N. Queensland. 





Fhilip, a Native Helper 
Rebecca, his wife, who became 
matron in the Home for Chil- 
dren. 


Considerable wheat is raised for ex- 
port. The main industry is the produc- 
tion of wool. The export of sheep on 
the hoof and frozen mutton is constant- 
ly increasing. Pearl fishing in Torres 
Strait is an important industry. The 
mines are yielding numerous metals, 
especially gold, tin and copper. 


James Ward and Nicholas Hey 
founded the station Mapoon in 1891. 
The prospects were poor enough. A 
sandy, desolate wilderness. Nightly 
they heard the sinister howlings of a 
native camp not far away. Only 8 
weeks before their arrival two white 
men had provided a cannibal feast for 
these people. The friends of missions 
warned the Moravians against these 
treacherous and bloodthirsty savages. 
Others expressed their contempt for 
the hair-brained adventurers who 
seemed actually to believe they could 
do the work of God for such a fear- 
fully fallen humanity—and waited for 
news of the failure of their crazy 
undertaking. The bitterest enemies 
of the mission were the pearl-fishers, 


144 


who had a very profitable business on 
this coast. The natives were very 
skillful divers, and their employers ex- 
ploited them without conscience and 
without shame. The presence of the 
missionaries made them feel somewhat 
uncomfortable. God gave success to 
their efforts. The natives soon learned 
that the missionaries were their true 
friends. Today Mapoon is a clean and 
pretty Christian village. In its house 
of God, Christians gather regularly 
for worship who thirty years ago were 
cannibals. They have learned to sing 
and pray, to worship, to love each 
other, to work diligently, to live clean 
and honorable lives. Not far from 
Mapoon there is an out-station, plan- 
ned by missionary Hey, where a num- 
ber of the more experienced converts 
have built their own homes and work 
their own land; they erected their own 
church and a native helper keeps daily 
devotions—they are largely indepen- 
dent of missionary control. 

Near the mission house in Mapoon 
there stands a school for boys and 
girls, with an enrolment of over 60. 
The training of the young is more im- 
portant here than ordinarily and is very 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


successful. It is very hard to wean 
adults from their nomad farm life and 
from their superstitious practices. Bet- 
ter things can be accomplished with 
the young. Mapoon is a miracle. The 
scorn of the enemies has ben put to 
shame. Missionary Hey so gained the 
confidence of the natives and the gov- 
ernment alike, that, like Hagenauer in 
Victoria, he was appointed Superin- 
tendent of the entire reservation. Two 
more stations were’ established at 
Weipa and Aurukun, at each of which 
the work among the young was meet- 
ing with success. During the World 
War, this mission gradually passed out 
of the hands of the Moravians. One 
of the men, Richter, was on furlough 
when the war began and he could not 
return to the field. Another one, 
Brown, was transferred to Santo Do- 
mingo. The superintendent, Hey, re- 
tired on account of age. Their suc- 
cessors were furnished by the Presby- 
terians of Australia. It is no longer a 
Moravian mission. But Moravians 
everywhere may well rejoice in the 
splendid proof given by their efforts 
that Jesus can save and sanctify even 
the most degraded human beings. 





School Girls of Weipa, N. Queensland. 


CHAPTER XII 
THE MISSIONS TO THE LEPERS 


URING the days of His earthly 

life, our Christ showed especial 

interest in the sick. Once He 
cured ten at once—and these were 
lepers. So it is entirely in harmony 
with His will that His church should 
do all it can for lepers, the most mis- 
erable of the miserable. The Church 
can not cure them, as He did, though 
a few cures are on record, but it can 
minister to their physical and spiritual 
needs. There are many of them in 
the world; for instance, 100,000 lepers 
wander through the villages of India 
alone. 

The Moravian Church engaged in 
this Christlike work from 1822 to 1867 
in Cape Colony, when the government 
placed all leper work in the care of 
the established church. About the 


same time came an invitation to werk 
in Jerusalem and in 1899 the church 
became interested in such unfortunates 
in Surinam, though the work there is 
not under the control of the Moravian 
Church as such; it is furnishing most 
of the nurses, but is not responsible 
for the finances. 

The story of the Jerusalem Asylum 
briefly is this. The Baroness Keffen- 
brink-Asheraden visited Jerusalem in 
1865 and was shocked by the miser- 
able plight of the lepers. She built 
a home just south of Jerusalem for 
lepers in 1867 and called it “Jesus- 
Hilfe.” To find men and women to 
care for the lepers was not easy—but 
enough Moravians were found willing 
to make the sacrifice. At first an as- 
sociation of friends of the lepers bore 





“Women Grinding Grain at the Leper Hospital. 


146 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





A Deaconess Treating Patients. 


the financial responsibility. Later the 
international Moravian Church assum- 
ed entire=charces “sincesthe W ataine 
British Moravian Church administers 
the Hospital for the Church. A com- 
mittee in Jerusalem takes care of 
purely local matters. All the nurses 
are furnished by the Moravian Deacon- 
ess Home, “Emmaus,” in Niesky, Up- 
per Silesia. They now have about 50 pa- 
tients, most of them men. Most of 
them are Mohammedans—the rest are 
Christians of various confessional con- 
nections. 


At first very few lepers were willing 
to enter the Home. They did not want 
to give up their freedom and settle 
down to the regular routine. The lov- 
ing Christian life of the nurses gradual- 
ly overcame this reluctance and pa- 
tients came in very large numbers. In 
1887 a new Home was erected—the 
Stately building of which a picture is 
shown. Not all the patients are thank- 
ful and satisfied at the Home; some 
forsake it and return to the freedom— 
and the misery—of their lives as beg- 
gars. Other cases of genuine grate- 





A Group of Patients at the Hospital Gates 


147 


THE MISSIONS TO THE LEPERS 


JSOO DAVY SUZPIBS VU ‘“wWeayelyd o}. 


‘ULSTeSNnAer url Teyrdsoy 


LOM p Le Ue Om Le 
AVMYSIY 94} UO fA1ID 94 JO JSOM-YINOS 


teday UvVIAvIOW 2849 ,,djew snsog,, 


ap VBIIs 
poayRBoo'T 





148 WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


fulness encourage the deaconesses in Christian Arab, Pastor Kurban, minis- 
their self-sacrificing efforts. ters to the spiritual needs of the in- 
The spiritual success is not striking, mates. The British Ophthalmic Hos- 
as far as numbers are concerned, and _ pital has, since the Great War, given 
yet precious souls are won for Christ splendid assistance in the treatment 
now and then. Dr. Canaan, a Chris- of eye-diseases among the patients. 


tian Arab is house-physician and a 





The Patients of the Leper Hospital. 


Note: For an account of our Leper Hospital in Surinam, see page 161. 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 


the north coast of South Amer- 

(CA ae Lt isto Chyeminterestin’ 
Moravian mission, especially because 
of the remarkable mixture of races re- 
presented in its population. So far as 
the land itself is concerned, it is mostly 
a low-lying plain; only at some dis- 
tance from the water’s edge are there 
any considerable elevations. From 
these numerous large and small rivers 
flow through the plain, and these rivers 
again are connected by very many 
creeks. Hence there is an abundance 
of water everywhere. The most im- 
portant rivers are the Surinam and the 
Saramacca, which flow through the 
colony, and the two large border rivers, 
the Corentyn on the west and the Mar- 
owyne on the east. A large part of the 
country is covered by primeval forests 
and at many places there are terrible 
swamps. Roads are for that reason 
not numerous. Transportation of pass- 
engers and freight must be on the 


(re is a small Dutch colony on 


g Ephrem 
‘ Ho pe 


water, by means of the small corjale, 
the larger “‘tent-boats” or small river 
steamers. 

A railroad, built in 1902 and 1903, 
now connects the capital city, Paramar- 
ibo, situated at the mouth of the Sur- 
inam River, with the gold-mines in 
the interior or “bush-land.” This is 
also of great help to the missionaries 
on their journeys inland. 

The climate is an exceedingly moist, 
tropical one, very enervating for white 
people, and the farther from the sea 
one goes, the more dangerous it be- 
comes. “The land of death” is the term 
applied to the district in the interior, 
on the upper reaches of the rivers. 
No white missionary has as yet been 
able to live there for any length of 
time. 

Even the natives are subject to all 
kinds of diseases. Malaria is common, 
and all kinds of skin-diseases, and epi- 
demics of yellow fever have often 
caused terrible destruction. Many 


eS 
¢ e : 
Nec ke tix ress + 


Cope” 





Our Mission Fields in S. America. 


150 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Harvest Festival Scene in Paramaribo. 


missionaries have fallen victims to 
these diseases. Positively horrifying 
is the suffering caused by leprosy 
among the colored population. 

In spite of all this, Surinam has at- 
tracted a great many colonists from 
various parts of the world. The un- 
usual fertility of the soil, combined 
with the great water-supply and the 


tropical heat, produces astonishingly 
large harvests and these in turn sup- 
port a very profitable trade. Practical- 
ly all tropical plants grow here in pro- 
fusion, such as sugar-cane, coffee, 
corn, bananas, cotton, etc. The forest 
yields various sorts of very hard tim- 
ber. The gold-mines have become 
very profiable. No one can say what 





A Tent-boat of our Mission. 


Solidly built, 35 or 40 feet long by 5 or 6 broad, such a boat is manned by 4 or 6 oars- 


men and a captain. 


The shelter (cabin) is 10 or 15 feet long. 


THE MISSION IN DuTCH GUIANA 151 





Church at New Nickerie, Surinam. 


further natural resources may yet be Upon this small strip of territory you 
found, for till now only a fractional find the greatly mixed population— 


part of the country has been develop- about 130,000 people. In the forests 
ed. and on the savannas there live about 





The Surinam River Front in Paramaribo. 


had WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Our Mission Headquarters in Paramaribo. 


18,000 negroes and perhaps 2000 In- part of Surinam, there live 2000 white 
dians in small, scattered villages, but people, many of them Jews, about 3000 
in the “colony” itself, the developed Chinese, 34,000 British Indians and 





Berg-en-dal on the Surinam River. 


THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 153 


17,000 Javanese. The most numerous 
element are the 54,000 colored people 
or creoles, descendants of slaves 
brought from Africa by the sugar 
planters. The “Bush’’-negroes come 
from the same stock. They were orig- 
inally African slaves, who were sent 
into the swamps for concealment by 
their Dutch owners, during a war with 
the British, and were able to maintain 
their independence when their owners 
tried to recapture them. Runaway 
Slaves joined them. They founded 
independent tribes under their own 
chieftains. They reverted to African 
conditions of life. They are good 
boat-men and warriors. The negroes of 
the colony and these bush-negroes 
show bitter contempt for each other. 
Dutch is the official language, and 
is making some headway among the 
people since it is being taught in the 
schools. The negroes in their inter- 
course with each other use the “‘Negro- 
english” almost exclusively—a dialect 
developed in times of slavery out of 
elements of various languages. Eu- 
ropean and Asiatic immigrants brought 





Five Native Evangelists of Surinam. 





Street Scene in Paramaribo. 











WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 














A Native Village in Surinam. 


their own speech; so that it is possible 
today to hear probably a dozen differ- 
ent languages spoken on the streets 
of Paramaribo. It has also been neces- 
sary to develop linguistically different 


forms of mission work for the 27,000 
souls under Moravian influence. 
When the first Moravian mission- 
aries came to Surinam, the Arawak 
Indians still constituted a large pro- 





Arawak Indians of Surinam in their Hammocks. 


155 


THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 








‘Spiiq 
JUBIT[IIq puBe S}SBvVOq PIM YIM ODATTR 
pue sjuyid [voisvisd Aq UMOI3-19A0 
JSOLOJ UISIIA JO ofsunf o[qBJIWeA VY 


"989010,.7 UWILVULINS eu 





156 WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 





Native Helpers in Surinam. 


portion of the population outside of first object of their effort and several 
the plantation districts. They were the congregations were founded. But after 





Christmas Pageant at Sharon, Surinam. 


157 


THE MISSION IN DuTCH GUIANA 


“ULVUTAINS ‘puvrysng 


ou} Ur 


U0T}"4S-4nO uy 





158 


several decades they had to be given 
up, because the negroes more and more 
rapidly displaced the Indians. But the 
workers have not yet entirely forgotten 
the Indians, remnants of whom are 
are found at the extreme edge of the 
bush lands. Seldom indeed does an 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


among the more numerous negro 
slaves, and this has become a mission 
of great importance to the entire 
colony. The beginning was painfully 
Slow and difficult. Not till 1778 could 
a church be built in Paramaribo, which 
has remained till now the headquart- 





Workers in Our Javanese Mission, Surinam. 


Brother Bielke 


(at the riehtaresar): 


KHvangelist Wagimin (center) 


and Evangelist Kasan Mukmin (left). 


Indian appear in Paramaribo or on the 
plantations. But now and then the 
missionaries meet Indians on_ their 
evangelistic tours, for instance, near 
Albina, far up on the Marowyne, and 
at rare intervals the baptism of an In- 
dian is reported. 

After three unsuccessful attempts 
(1735-45), work was begun in 1754 


ers of Moravian missions in Surinam. 
From here regular evangelistc tours 
were made to plantations within rea- 
sonable distance. The plantation own- 
ers did not care to have missionaries 
preach to their slaves. Gradually they 
became more friendly and since 1835 
a number of plantation-stations were 
organized. The slaves showed a re- 


THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 


ceptive disposition towards the Gospel 
and most of the congregations prosper- 
ed. In large number the blacks came 
in their corjales to the church at the 
Station to gather around their ‘“Leri- 
man” to be taught the Word of God. 

A complete change of conditions 
occurred when the slaves were freed 
in 1873. During their slavery, the 
negroes had gotten more than their 
fill of plantation life. Now they de- 
termined te earn their living in an 
easier manner, and worked only when 
it was necessary. The city with its 
busy life and its social opportunities, 
attracted many of them. The Paramar- 
ibo congregation became so large that 
the church was not capable of holding 
them all, nor could one worker take 
care of them. The congregation had to 
be divided into parts. New churches 
were built in different sections of the 
city, each with its own pastor. Today 
there are 7 Moravian churches in the 
city and its suburbs, with a total mem- 
bership of about 13,000—and that is 
about one third of the population of 
the city. This is by far the largest 
Moravian mission congregation in the 
world. 

It is to be expected that in such a 
mass of people, of such antecedents, 
under such conditions, there would be 





A Heathen Indian Woman of Surinam. 


a great deal of misery and sin. The 
special sin here is immorality, with 
the inevitable decadence of family life. 
To meet this condition, methods of 
work had to be introduced of a social 
service nature, in addition to evangel- 





Bright-eyed Coolies of Surinam. 


160 





The Bush-country of Surinam. 


ism. The city mission tries in various 
ways to arouse the desire for Christian 
life among the masses by lectures and 
courses of instruction, orphan homes, 
employment agency, sick and death- 
‘benefit funds and societies for boys, 
young men, young women, and for the 
distribution of Bibles and tracts. A 
Children’s Home was opened in 1910, 
at Sharon near Paramaribo, for or- 
phaned colored children. “There are 
almost one hundred at the home and 
the need for more room is urgent. 

The mission conducts a very exten- 
sive school system, of primary and 
grammar grade and_ “several high 
schools. Over one hundred teachers, 
most of them holding state certificates, 
are active in 36 schools with an enroll- 
ment of about 4000 pupils. 

Since the beginning of this century, 
native ordained ministers and native 
helpers assist the 25 European mission- 
aries in their work among the creoles. 
There is a theological school in Par- 
amaribo, where these natives receive 
their training. 

Another consequence of the shifting 
of population, since the slaves became 
free, has been the necessary closing 
of some of the old stations and filials 
and new stations had to be opened at 
other places. That has caused some 
hindrance in the development of the 
churches and also involved consider- 
able expense. 

The congregations at the old mis- 
sion stations have long since been 


WoRLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


Christianized, however imperfectly. 
But out of them has sprung an entirely 
new mission among real pagans. The 
planters were compelled to find labor- 
ers to take the place of the negro free- 
men who refused to work for them. 
They found them in British Indian cool- 
ies and latterly in Javanese. They 
come into the country as_ laborers 
bound by contract for definite periods 
of time. At the expiration of their 
indenture, they usually remain in Sur- 
inam. Their number has become so 
large that they must be reckoned with 
as important factors in the life of the 
colony. Of course they brought their 
ethnic religions with them, mostly 
Hinduism and Mohammedanism. The 
Moravians were the only Protestants 
in the country, and it became their 
Christian duty to care for these Asiatic 
immigrants. A beginning was made in 
1901. Small East Indian and Javanese 
congregations of Christians have been 
gathered and in two Childrens’ Homes 
at Alkmaar and Liliendaal, a number 


~ 





Three Bush-negro Boys. 
The Result of Missionary Effort. 


THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 


of native children are being educated 
as Christians. One hesitates to say it, 
but it is unfortunately a fact that in 
this new form of missionary activity, 
a serious hindrance is the deliberate, 
energetic, and often positively unscru- 
pulous opposition of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church. Opportunities for convert- 


ing heathen are plentiful, but there is_ 


no reason why persistent efforts should 
be made to steal the members of the 
Moravian Church. 

The Leper Hospital “Bethesda” is 
another labor of love in this colony. 
There are many lepers in the country. 
There was great need of assistance for 
the pitiful sufferers. The government 
has an asylum for them at Groot 
Chatillon. There was much that could 
be done in addition to the government’s 
efforts—especially in a religious way. 
The “Protestant Union for the care 
of Lepers in Surinam” built the pri- 
vate Leper Home “Bethesda” in 1895. 
A Moravian missionary was appointed 
director and spiritual advisor, and 5 
deaconesses from the Moravian Dea- 
coness’ Home “Emmaus” in Niesky, 
Germany, devoted their energy to the 
poor lepers, who have learned to feel 
ever more fully at home and happy in 
the neat, little village built for their 
especial care. A children’s ‘Leper 
Home” has just been added to Beth- 
esda, (1926) but not yet furnished. 
25 children are waiting to enter the 
Home. 

Leaving Bethesda and journeying 
still farther up the Surinam, we soon 
reach Bergendal and here begins the 
mission among the Bush-negroes, esti- 
mated at about 3,000 in number. These 
are practically all still heathen, in con- 
trast with the colored people of the 
colony, who are Christian. Such re- 
ligion as these Bush-negroes have is 
mostly fetishism—the worship of any 
object as being the habitation of a 
deity or having mysterious and magical 
power. There are four main tribes of 
Bush-negroes—the Ancan tribe on the 
Marowyne and the Saramaccan tribe 
on the upper Surinam are the most im- 





161 


portant. Between the years 1765 and 
1813 various Moravian brethren had 
preached to the last named tribe and 
not entirely without success. They 
baptized 107 of them, but at the ex- 


Rev. C. W. Bliid, Ordained 1902 


First Native Minister in Surinam. 


pense of the lives of 9 brethren and 7 
sisters and the broken health of as 
many more. The impossible climate 
compelled them to stop their efforts 
heres 

Taught by such experiences, the re- 
newed efforts among these people were 


WORLD-WIDE MORAVIAN MISSIONS 


162 





"ULVUIANG Ul euLoy aedey ano ,,‘epseyjeg,, 








THE MISSION IN DUTCH GUIANA 


begun on an entirely new basis. In 
the mean time the Christian congrega- 
tions in the colony had progressed so 
far, that it was possible to train a corps 
of native evangelists and ministers. 
These men were specially fitted to be- 
come missionaries among the Bush- 
negroes; the climate was not especially 
dangerous to them. Such native forces 
now serve the Bush-negro congrega- 
tions, of which there are 23, with 8 
preaching places. 

The cost of this mission is met in 
various ways. The government of 
Holland pays the salaries of teachers 
in all approved schools and pays a sub- 
sidy towards church support in the 
colony. The native Christians pay 
church dues, but, as they belong to the 
poorest stratum of society, they can 
not contribute very much, and possibly, 
as in most other congregations, they 
have not yet learned to do their whole 
duty towards the financial support of 
the church. Furthermore, there is a 
large mission business in Paramaribo, 


163 


named after the founder, C. Kersten 
and Co. In the course of 150 years it 
has grown from a very small begin- 
ning to one of the leading business 
firms of Surinam. By a really Chris- 
tian conduct of business, as well as by 
various social and economic arrange- 
ments, this company purposes to exert 
an undoubted Godly influence among 
the people, in full co-operation with 
the preaching of the Gospel by the 
missionaries. All net profits belong 
to the mission. The amount of the 
profits depends largely upon the gen- 
eral conditions of trade. At the pre- 
sent time the mission treasury of the 
church must furnish a_ considerable 
amount of money for this mission. 
About 27,000 are members in good 
standing, and very many more are ad- 
herents and look to the Moravian 
Church for guidance. There are about 
20 native men theologically trained, a 
large company of native evangelists 
and over a hundred school teachers. 





Mrs. Weiss’ Bible Class of Lepers at Bethesda. 


For Further Reading and Study 


These books and pamphlets may be procured from the 
Moravian Book Shop, Bethlehem, Pa. 


History OF MoraviAN Missions. Hutton. $2.00 
Well written and supplied with maps. 550 pages, cloth. 

MoraviAN Missions. HAMILTON. $2.00 
A faithful chronological record in detail. 

THE FALL OF TORNGAK, OR THE MORAVIAN MISSION ON THE COAST 
oF LABRADOR. Davey. Illustrated. $1.00 

DaAvip ZEISBERGER AND HIS BROWN BRETHREN. Rice. Illus. $.50 

MoraviAN Missionary ATLAS. An official publication. $1.35 
Excellent detail maps by Wagner & Debes of Leipzig. 
Everyone interested in our missions should have this atlas. 

THE Nyasa Mission. Beautifully illustrated. Hamilton. $.75 

HANSINA HINz. A missionary biography. Schneider. $.50 

FIRE AND SNow. (Missionary stories). Hutton. $1.00 

MorRAVIAN Missions AMONG SOUTHERN INDIAN TRIBES. Schwarze. 
Illustrated. $2.75 

HISTORY OF THE MoRAVIAN CHURCH. Hutton. $1.25 

HIstoRY OF MORAVIAN MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS ON THE 
WHITE RIVER IN INDIANA. Stocker. $1.25 

THE MORAVIANS IN GeEorGIA. Fries. Illustrated. $1.25 

THE BICENTENARY PAMPHLETsS. Six bound together in cloth. Illus- 
trated. $.75 
For those who can read German and want the most analytical and 

scientifically accurate historical study of our missions, including the most 

comprehensive bibliography in all languages: 

““ABRISS EINER GESCHICHTE DER BRUEDER Mission.” Cloth. Adolf 
Schulze. $1.50 


N. B. The latest statistics and annual reports are to be found in the 
annual “Proceedings of the Society for Propagating the Gospel 
Among the Heathen.” Illustrated. About 150 pages. $1.00 


PERIODICALS 


THE MorAvIAN Missionary. A monthly for young people.  Illus- 
trated. $.50 

MoraviAN Missions. Illus. monthly of our missionary work. $.50 

PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS RELATING TO MORAVIAN Missions. A quart- 
erly. Illustrated. The official missionary organ. $.50 
This historic missionary periodical is in its 137th year. 

THE MorAvIAN. The American Moravian weekly. $2.00 


The above list contains only the newest and most available publica- 
tions concerning Moravian missions. The complete bibliography of Mora- 
vian missions is large, especially in the German language. For further 
information the reader is invited to address 

The Religious Education Board of the Moravian Church, 


The Rev. S. H. Gapp, Ph. D., Chairman 
69 West Church Street, Bethlehem, Pa. 


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Diagram of the Historical Deve 



















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